,^vs  OF  mucfrr. 


BV    4213    .V53    1854 

Vinet,  Alexandre  Rodolphe, 

1797-1847. 
Homiletics 


^^ 


H  0  M  I  LE  T  I  C  S; 


OR, 


THE    THEORY    OF    PREACHING 


/ 


By  a.  YINET,  D.D.  • 


TRANSLATED       AND       EDITED 


By    THOMAS    H.    SKINNER,    D.D., 

PROFESSOR   OF    SACRED    RHETORIC    AND    PASTORAL   THEOLOGY,   IN    TH« 
UNION    THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY    OF    NEW    YORK. 


Hug  6e  (iKovaovGi  x^'pk  liTjpvaaovTog  ; 
■    SECOND    EDITION. 

NEW   YORK: 
lYISON   &  PHINNEY,   178  FULTON  STEEET. 

(successors    of    NEWMAN    <fe    IVtS-'N,    AND    MARK    II.  NEWMAN    &    CO.) 

CHICAGO:      S.    C.    GRIGGS    &    CO.       BUFFALO:    PHINNEY    &    CO. 

AUBURN  :    J.   C.  IVISON  &  CO.     DETROIT  :  A.  m'faRREN. 

CINCINNATI:    MOORE,  ANDERSON    &    CO. 

1854. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1853,  by 

NEWMAN    &    IVISON, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of 

New  York. 


STEREOTYPEn    BY  PRINTED  DT 

THOMAS    B.    srvHTH,  JOHN   F.TROW, 

216  WiUiam  St.,  N.  Y.  49  Ann  Street. 


Tii£Q::AOC:.c>;ii 


:.^\r^ 


PREFACE 

BY    THE    TRANSLATOR. 

As  the  form  of  preaching  should  be  perfectly  adapted 
to  times  and  places,*  it  ought  to  be  very  different  now 
from  what  it  has  ever  been  ;  for  the  peculiarity  of  these 
times  is,  in  many  respects,  radical,  and  its  bearings  on 
all  divine  and  human  interests  are  very  decided  and 
general.  The  mode  of  preaching  which  prevailed  at 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  could  not  have 
been  retained  entirely  unchanged ;  the  renovating  pow- 
er, which  has  been  changing  all  things  in  science,  in  art, 
in  the  physical,  social  and  civil  life  of  man,  has,  of 
necessity,  been  felt  by  the  pulpit,  the  central  instrumen- 
tality in  human  history.  Preaching,  on  the  whole,  has 
consequently  been  advancing,  together  with  the  general 
progress  of  society.  It  must,  however,  be  admit- 
ted, that  in  the  career  of  improvement,  it  has  not 
been  in  advance  of  the  other  instruments  of  change 

*  See  1  Corinthians,  ix.  19-23.  Compare,  also,  Saint  J'aul's  ad- 
dress to  the  philosophers  of  Athens  (Acts,  xvii.  2'2-ol)Avit}i  tliat 
which  he  delivered  to  his  countrymen  at  Antioch  in  Pisidia,  (Acta, 
xiii.  16-41.) 


iv  PREFACE. 

wMcli  are  exerting  themselves  with,  such  astonishing 
efficiency  in  every  sphere  of  human  life ;  it  is  doubtless 
behind  the  most  of  them ;  nor  is  there  any  object  of 
deeper  interest  to  every  true  philanthropist,  every 
one  who  identifies  the  progress  of  humanity  with  the 
success  of  the  gospel,  than  that  preaching  should 
receive  a  new  and  healthful  impulse,  which  shall 
give  it  the  precedence  to  which  it  is  entitled — a  just 
adaptation  to  humanity  in  its  present  excited  and  over- 
active state,  and  a  controlhng  power  over  all  the 
changes  which,  with  such  unparalleled  rapidity,  are 
coming  to  pass  everywhere  in  the  world. 

It  was  the  chief  reason  why  the  translator  of  this 
work  desired  its  circulation,  that  its  author  insists  so 
earnestly  and  forcibly  on  the  necessity  of  modifying 
preaching,  so  as  to  suit  it  to  the  character  of  the  age ; 
that  a  mind  so  richly  endowed  by  nature,  so  furnished 
with  every  kind  of  knowledge,  so  highly  disciplined, 
and  so  pre-eminent  in  spirituality  and  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  christian  truth,  has,  in  this  work,  given 
its  whole  strength  to  the  exposition  of  a  theory 
which  embraces  this  necessity  as  one  of  its  funda- 
mental and  most  prominent  ideas.*  Careful  study  of 
the  product  of  its  labor  has  very  much  increased  his 
desire. 

*  See  chap,  vi.,  part  ii.,  and  especially  the  installation  discourse 
at  the  end  of  the  book,  pages  491-505. 


PEEFACE.  V 

On  a  subject  of  the  greatest  importance  and  difficulty, 
and  whicli  many  eminent  men  have  treated,  the  author 
has  given  to  the  world  an  original  book ;  and  we  ven- 
ture  to  say  that   among  all   the   productions  of   his 
23owerful  pen,  it  is  destined  to  be  regarded  universally, 
as   in  the    first  rank  of  scholarship,  learning,    intel- 
lectual affluence  and  power,  grace  and  beauty,  order 
and   perfection  of  execution.     He   confines    himself 
throughout  to  preaching  as  his  chief  subject;  but  as 
the  theory  of  preaching  and  that  of  secular  oratory 
coincide  in  their  essential  elements,  (eloquence  being  in 
principle  the  same  in  every  sphere,)  he  enters  freely  into 
the  domain  of  the   latter.     He  shows  himself  master 
of  it,  and  avails  himself  fully  of  the  treasures  of  wis- 
dom, learning,  thought  and  expression  with  which  the 
labors  of  his  |)redecessors  have  filled  it ;  but  he  does 
this  only  that  he  may  present  his  work  as  a  more 
worthy  offering  at  the  shrine  of  sacred  eloquence.     In 
return,  however,  he  has  laid  all  kinds  of  oratory  un- 
der   obligations   to   him.      His   book   is   a   directory 
for  all  public  speakers  and  all  who  would  excel  in 
argumentative,  oratorical  and  elegant  writing.    There  is  _ 
scarcely  a  question  pertaining  to  the  philosophy  of 
rhetoric  and    belles  lettres,  to  the  laws  of  language 
and  reasoning,  to  the  mode  of  influencing  the  mind 
by  persuasive  discourse,  which  does  not  find  a  place 
in   this  book,  which  is  not  here  treated   with   the 


VI  PREFACE. 

charm  of  diction,  tlie  strength  and  beauty  of  style 
the  clearness  of  statement  and  method,  by  which  this 
great  author  is  so  eminently  distinguished.  It  is  a 
book  for  the  man  of  taste,  of  general  literature  and 
philosophy ;  for  the  student  who  desires  to  furnish  his 
mind  as  richly  as  possible  with  sentiment,  with  thought, 
with  precise  and  comprehensive  views,  with  the  secret 
of  vigorous  thinking  and  writing  ;  for  every  one, 
in  short,  who  aims  to  bring  all  the  powers  of  his 
nature  under  the  highest  form  of  mental  discipline. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  strictly  an  offering  to  the  pulpit ; 
first  and  last  it  is  a  work  whose  great  purpose  is 
the  improvement  of  sacred  oratory,  the  increase  of 
strength,  of  skill,  of  wisdom,  and  efficiency  in  preach- 
ing. 

The  reader  cannot  fail  to  remark  that  the  illustrative 
examples,  which  are  very  abundant,  are  taken  almost 
exclusively  from  French  and  Grerman  authors.  The 
Editor  was  inclined  at  first  to  add  others  from  the  pro- 
ductions of  English,  Scotch  and  American  preachers ; 
but  he  found  that  the  size  of  the  book  would  be  in- 
creased too  much  if  any  degree  of  justice  were 
done  to  these  preachers,  who,  in  number,  power 
and  excellence  of  every  kind,  stand  altogether  un- 
rivalled ;  and  when  he  considered  that  in  this  country 
these  authors  are  comparatively  well  known,  while 
those  of  the  French  and  German  churches  are  Strang- 


PREFACE.  VU 

ers,  except  to  a  few,  he  had  less  regret  that  no 
additional  examples  could  be  well  admitted. 

The  translator's  work  has  been  merely  one  of 
translation.  Certain  passages  seemed  to  require  para- 
phrase or  commentary,  which  the  Editor  was  tempt- 
ed to  give,  but  as  he  perceived,  invariably,  that 
closer  application  to  the  author's  thought,  made  com- 
ment superfluous,  he  determined  simply  to  render 
the  French  into  English.  In  a  few  cases,  he  has 
made  brief  remarks  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  ; 
but  the  text  is  strict  translation,  with  no  variations 
from  the  manner  of  the  author,  which  were  not  re- 
quired by  fidehty  to  his  meaning. 

The  author  generally  renders  into  French  the  ex- 
amples which  he  cites  from  works  in  other  languages ; 
the  awkwardness  of  translating  these  translations  has 
been,  in  most  cases,  avoided  by  making  or  adopting 
translations  from  the  originals.  In  two  instances  a 
friend  has  favored  the  Editor  with  translations  from 
the  German.* 

The  Editor  has  added  an  index,  in  order  to  assist 
the  reader  in  referring  to  the  very  numerous  and 
various  subjects  which  are  contained  in  the  book. 

*  These  are  tlie  citations  from  Theremin  and  Herder,  at  the  con 
elusion  of  Chap.  vi..  PART  II. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Adveetisement  of  the  Editors 1*7 

INTRODUCTION. 

The  word 19 

May  it  be  reduced  to  aa  art  ? 22 

Eloquence 22 

Oratorical  Discourse 26 

Pulpit  Discourse 30 

Two  errors  in  relation  to  Homiletics  ;  depreciating  the  art,  and 

expecting  too  much  from  it 32 


PART    FIRST. 

INVENTION. 
Of  invention  in  general 49 

SECTION  FIRST. 

SUBJECT    OF    PULPIT    DISCOURSE. 
CHAPTER  L 

UNITY   OF   THE   SUBJECT. 

Idea  of  unity  and  its  importance. 64 

Its  forms  in  Pulpit  Discourse 66 

Additional  remarks 66 

CHAPTER  II. 

INTEREST    OF   THE   SUBJECT. 

Interest  in  the  objective  sense 69 

Literest  in  the  subjective  sense 69 


X  CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

Purely  oratorical  interest 69 

Christian  interest 71 

Subjects  to  be  excluded 72 

Subjects  to  be  treated. 75 

§  L  Doctrinal  subjects 76 

How  to  be  understood 76 

Too  much  analysis  to  be  avoided 76 

Pure  science  to  be  avoided 77 

Apologetical  subjects 77 

Controversy 78 

Natural  religion 78 

§  11.  Subjects  of  Morality 80 

Their  importance 80 

Descriptive  and  preceptive  Morality 81 

General  and  particular  Morality 81 

The  same  subject  with  a  view  to  dififereuce  of  impression. .  81 

Occasional  Sermons 85 

§  III.  Historical  subjects 88 

Importance  of  instruction  by  means  of  recitals 88 

Matter  of  Historical  Sermons 89 

§  IV.  Subject  drawn  from  the  contemplation  of  Nature 90 

§  V.  Psychological  subjects 91 

Importance  of  Psychology 92 

Philosophy  in  general 93 

Remai'ks  on  these  last  three  classes  of  subjects 93 

Advice  to  the  yoxmg  Preacher 95 

CHAPTER  HI. 

OF   THE    TEXT. 

1.  Of  the  Text  in  General 96 

A  Text  not  essential  to  the  Sermon 96 

Disadvantages  of  Texts 99 

Advantages  of  .Texts 102 

Means  of  avoiding  the  disadvantages  of  Texts 103 

§  Rules  in  choosing  Texts 106 

1.  They  are  to  be  drawn  from  the  Divine  Word 106 

2.  To  be  understood  in  the  sense  in  which  their  authors   used 

them 110 


CONTENTS.  Xi 

PAGE 

3.  To  be  clear 135 

4.  To  be  fruitful 137 

5.  To  be  suitable 139 

6.  To  have  unity 139 

7.  To  be  various  and  individual 145 

Not  to  depart  -n^ithout  necessity  from  the  order  of  the  Text.  146 

Two  Texts  to  the  same  Sermon 146 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Of  HoauLY  and  Paraphrase 146 

SECTION  SECOND. 

Matter  of  Pulpit  Discourse 153 

CHAPTER  I. 

Of  Explication , 156 

1.  Explication  of  facts 156 

Narration  and  Description .• 157 

2.  Explication  of  ideas 158 

What  is  an  idea 158 

Definition  and  Judgment 161 

Definition  direct  and  indirect.. ; 164 

CHAPTER  II. 

Of  Proof 169 

1.  Proof  properly  so  called  or  reasons 171 

Authority 171 

Experience 171 

Reasoning 171 

Value  of  reasoning 174 

General  rules  for  the  use  of  it , 174 

Affirmative  and  negative  argumentation 177 

Simple  and  combined 179 

Direct  and  indirect 186 

Forms  of  the  latter 188 

2.  Motives 203 


XU  CONTENTS. 

PAOE 

Of  inclination  or  affection 203 

Motive  from  Goodness 206 

Motive  from  Happiness 207 

Self-love 213 

Ridicule 213 

Sense  of  the  beautiful 214 

Sympathetic  affections 215 

Of  Emotion 215 

3.  Of  Unction 223 

4.  Of  Authority 221 

Authority  essential  to  Eloquence 228 

Difference  between  Catholics  and  Protestants 230 

Between  our  times  and  preceding  ones 230 

Between  individuals 234 

Conditions  on  which  one  may  preach  with  authority 235 

Reprehension 239 

Its  Rules 242 

Resume  of  Part  I 261 


PAKT  SECOND. 

DISPOSITION. 

CHAPTER  I 

Of  General  Disposition 261 

§  1.  Idea  and  importance  of  Disposition 261 

Necessity  of  order 262 

Its  principle 268 

§  2.  Disposition  under  the  logical  point  of  view 274 

Decomposition  of  the  theme 275 

Various  possible  divisions  of  the  same  subject 277 

Rules  to  be  observed  in  general  disposition 281 

Counsels  in  regard  to  the  plan  and  parts  of  the  Discourse. . .  284 

§  3.  Disposition  under  the  Oratorical  point  of  view 287 

It  supposes  logical  disposition 287 

Continued  and  progressive  movement 289 

Forms  of  oratorical  progress 292 


CONTENTS.  XIU 

CHAPTER  II 

OF    THE    EXOEDIUM. 

PAGK 

Rules  relating  to  its  contents 299 

Rules  relating  to  its  character 804 

CHAPTER  HI. 

Declaration  of  the  design  and  announcement  of  the  plan 308 

Should  the  plan  of  the  Discourse  be  announced 309 

Different  opinions 809 

Conclusion  815 

CHAPTER  IV. 

OF   TRANSITIONS. 

Idea  and  advantages  of  Transitions 317 

Their  difficulty "SIS 

Their  qualities 818 

Sources  from  whence  they  are  to  be  drawn 319 

CHAPTER  V. 

OF   THE   PERORATION. 

Its  nature 320 

Its  grounds 322 

Its  forms 323 

Rules  to  be  observed ^ 327 

CHAPTER  VI. 

General  considerations  on  the  form  of  Pulpit  Discourse,  Ideal  and 

Reality 830 

Traditional  form 331 

What  should  be  opposed  to  the  invasion  of  form 334 

Individuality 835 

Theremin 335 

Herder : 839 

CHAPTER  VIL 
Self-Culture  with  reference  to  Disposition 340 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

PAET  THIED. 

ELOCUTION. 

CHAPTER  I. 

OF  ELOCUTION  IN  GENERAL. 

PAGE. 

Writing  is  still  inventing  and  disposing 343 

Importance  of  style 343 

Objections 344 

CHAPTER  II. 

Fundamental  qualities  of  style 366 

§  1.  Perspicuity 368 

§  2-!  Purity 377 

Correctness 377 

Propriety 378 

Precision 381 

§  3.  Order 387 

§  4.  Naturalness 392 

§  5.  Congruity 396 

Simplicity 397 

Popularity 399 

Familiarity 402 

Nobleness 407 

Gravity 410 

Scriptural  tone 411 

CHAPTER  III. 

SUPERIOR  QUALITIES  OR  VIRTUES  OF  STYLE. 

§  1.  Of  strength  and  beauty  of  style  in  general 421 

Difference  between  Poetry  and  Eloquence 423 

Active  character  of  the  latter 424 

Exclusion  of  superfluous  ornaments 426 

The  whole  not  to  to  be  sacrificed  to  details 428 

Qualities  of  an  eloquent  style 431 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGK 

§  2.  Of  Color 433 

1,  Direct  means  of  painting 434 

Description 435 

Epithets 436 

2.  Indirect  means 439 

Antithesis 440 

Metaphor 441 

Allegory 444 

Comparison 444 

§  3.  Movement 447 

Its  relation  to  Eloquence 448 

Its  forms 449 

Expository  and  Allocutive  style 449 

1.  Figm-es  which  abide  within  the  limits  of  the  Expository 
style 452 

Repetition 452 

Gradation 453 

Accmnulation 453 

Reticence 454 

Correction 458 

Pretermission 456 

Irony 456 

Hyperbole 457 

Paradox 457 

Oratorical  hypothesis 457 

2.  Figures  which  transcend  the  limits  of  the  expository  style.  459 

Interrogation 459 

Exclamation 460 

Dramatisme  in  its  various  forms.. 462 

Quahties  connected  with  color  and  movement 465 

Variety 465 

Elegance 467 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Material  part  of  Discourse  or  Sound 470 

Imitative  Harmony 471 

Euphony 471 

Number 472 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

Periodic  style 474 

Laconic  style 418 


APPENDIX. 

A  Discourse  deliveeed  by  M.  Vinet,  at  his  Installation  as  Pro- 
fessor OF  Practical  Theology  in  the  Academy  of  Lausanne, 
November  1st,  1837 477 

Index 513 


ADVERTISEMENT  OF  THE  EDITORS. 

The  remarks  we  prefixed  to  the  Pastoral  Theology 
are  yet  more  particularly  applicable  to  tlie  course  on 
Homiletics^  and  we  refer  the  reader  to  them. 

The  original  manuscripts,  which  in  some  parts  of 
the  course  are  numerous  and  various,  have  been  com- 
pared with  one  another,  and  that  which  we  have  taken 
as  the  basis  of  our  labor,  has  often  been  enriched  by 
ideas  borrowed  from  the  others.  On  points,  on  which 
M.  Yinet  left  only  short  and  imperfect  notes,  we  had 
recourse  to  the  note-books  of  his  hearers,  and,  as  in 
the  Pastoi^al  Theology^  we  have  indicated  the  passages 
borrowed  from  their  note-books,  and  those  in  which 
the  original  text  has  been  somewhat  modified,  either 
by  completing  imperfect  sentences  or  by  combining 
detached  fi'agments,  by  enclosing  them  in  brackets.  [*] 
We  have  omitted  this  caution  only  in  matters  of  detail, 
too  unimportant  to  be  noticed. 

The  work  we  pubhsh,  especially  in  respect  to  form, 
would  certainly  have  been  more  perfect,  if  the  author 
himself  had  revised  it;  still  the  last  form,  which,  after 

*  These  are  omitted  in  the  translation. 


XVUl  ADYERTISEMENT. 

successive  revisions,  lie  gave  to  many  extended  por- 
tions of  his  course,  is  doubtless  very  nearly  tliat  whicli 
lie  would  finally  have  adopted,  and  may  be  considered 
as  definitive.  In  every  particular  this  volume,  in  all  its 
parts,  gives  with  scrupulous  fidelity  the  thoughts  of 
M.  Yinet  on  one  of  the  most  important  branches  of 
his  teaching ;  nor  can  we  doubt,  that  while  it  will  be 
eagerly  received  by  the  portion  of  the  public,  for  whom 
it  is  directly  designed,  it  will  be  also  read  by  others 
with  lively  interest  and  great  advantage. 


H  0  MIL  E  T  I  C  S. 


INTEODUCTION. 

The  office  of  the  Evangelical  Ministry  consists  of  differ- 
ent elements,  among  which  The  Word  has  the  predomi- 
nance. The  Christian  religion,  the  religion  of  liberty  and 
persuasion,  is  a  word.  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  at  once  the 
Author  and  the  Object  of  Christianity,  is  called  The  Word.* 
Even  before  his  advent  in  the  flesh,  he  spoke  internally  to 
the  conscience  of  every  man  ;  for  the  word  is  not  only  that 
series  of  articulate  sounds  which  conveys  ideas  to  the  mind ; 
the  word  is  the  thought  itself.  The  thought  is  a  word,  as 
the  word  is  a  thought.  But  this  Word,  which  spoke  out  of 
time  and  internally,  has  spoken  in  time  and  externally. 
Jesus  Christ  spoke  by  facts ;  he  spoke  by  his  life,  and  by 
his  death ;  but  he  spoke  also  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
term.  He  preached. f  We  are  called  to  repeat  his  words  ; 
but  he  sends  us,  as  he  himself  was  sent ;  that  is  to  say,  as  he 

*  John  i.  1-4,  14. 

f  "  Summus  ecclesiastes  Dei  filius,  qui  est  imago  patris  absolutis- 
sima,  qvii  virtus  et  sapientia  genitoris  est  seterna,  per  quern  Patri 
visum  est  humanse  gentis  largiri  quidquid  bonorum  mortalium  generi 
dare  decreverat,  nullo  alio  cognomine  magnificentius  significantiusvo 
denotatur  in  sacris  literis,  quam  quum  dicitur  verbum  sive  sermo 
Dei."    Erasmus  Ecclesiastes,  lib  i.,  cap  ii. 


20  INTEODUCTION. 

is  united,  in  thought  te  his  Father,  he  would  have  us  unite 
ourselves  to  him  in  thought ;  that  we  should  be  one  with 
him  as  he  is  one  with  his  Father.  He  strikes  upon  our  mind 
as  on  sounding  brass,  which  does  not  resound  without  vi- 
brating ;  it  is  his  pleasure,  that  as  we  are  the  offspring  of 
his  thought,  our  brethren  should  become  the  offspring  of 
ours.  God  has  purposed  that  man  should  be  the  channel  of 
truth  to  man.  Natural  paternity  is  the  symbol  of  our  spir- 
itual relationships ;  we  mutually  engender  one  another.*  Not 
only  are  words  to  be  transmitted  and  repeated  ;  a  life  is  to 
be  communicated.  The  truths  of  which  the  Gospel  consists 
must  become  living  and  personal  in  living  persons.  The 
Word  did  not  speak  once  for  all  (unless  we  take  the  letter 
for  the  Word)  ;  the  Word  speaks  without  ceasing,  and  the 
letter  of  the  Gospel  is  only  the  necessary  means  through 
which  this  Word  speaks  to  all.  This  is  the  only  just  idea 
of  the  institution  of  the  ministry.  The  minister  is  a  minis- 
ter of  the  Word  of  God.  Christianity,  a  religion  of  thought, 
should  be  spoken.\ 

We  are  authorized  to  call  men  ministers  of  the  gospel  or 
pastors  who  do  not  exercise  the  ministry  of  the  word.  In 
doing  so,  we  do  but  follow  the  apostles  and  the  primitive 
church ;  but  still  we  cannot  understand  them  otherwise  than 
as  giving  instruction,  that  is  to  say,  the  word,  the  pre- 
eminence among  all  the  labors  of  the  ministry.  "  Let  the 
pastors  who  fulfil  their  functions  well,  be  accounted  worthy 
of  a  double  honor,  especially  those  "  (there  were  then  pas- 
tors whose  office  was  not  speaking)  "  who  labor  in  preaching 
the  word,  and  in  instruction."  1  Timothy,  v.  17,  comp.  with 
1  Corinthians,  xiv.  1-4. 

*  See  rjEssai  sur  la  manifestation  des  Convictions  Religieuses,  pp. 
Ill,  112. 

f  See  Pastoral  Theology,  page  24  of  our  translation,  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Resume  of  the  first  part  of  Homiletics. 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

The  Word  is  the  pastor's  great  instrument.  It  varies  ac- 
cording to  its  different  uses ;  it  breaks  the  bread  of  life  now  into 
smaller,  now  into  larger  pieces ;  if  need  be,  it  reduces  it  to 
to  crumbs. 

The  minister  speaks  either  on  the  part  of  man  to  God,  or 
on  the  part  of  God  to  man ;  in  doing  the  first  he  prays,  in 
doing  the  second  he  preaches.  It  is  of  the  second  only  that 
we  are  now  to  treat. 

He  preaches  to  individuals — to  the  community  dispersed, 
to  the  community  assembled  in  one  place.  We  are  to  speak 
of  the  latter  kind  of  preaching. 

He  must  preach  to  the  assembled  community,  in  order  to 
reach  those  who  cannot  be  otherwise  reached,  in  order  to  pre- 
pare in  the  temple  the  invisible  church  which  no  temple  can 
contain,  and  which,  in  its  pure  state,  exists  in  none ;  in  order 
to  give  to  the  word  all  the  distinction  and  efficac}'-  of  which 
it  is  susceptible.  A  community  may  be  addressed  by  writing, 
but  the  written  word  camiot  hold  the  place  of  the  other,  or 
render  it  superfluous. 

This  predominance  of  the  word  in  Christian  worship,  gives 
the  latter  a  distinct  character.  It  gives  reality  to  the  notion 
of  the  church.  There  is  no  Mahometan,  no  Brahminical 
church,  and  certainly  there  is  not  a  church  in  the  religion  of 
Homer.  With  the  Jews,  instruction  was  separated  from  wor- 
ship, (we  say  the  Jewish  people^  rather  than  the  Jewish  church  ;) 
if  there  was  a  Jewish  church,  instruction,  not  worship,  formed 
it,  and  that  church  had  no  centre.  It  is  only  among  Christians 
that  worship  and  instruction,  which  are  coordinate  one  to  the 
other,  which  are  interpreted  one  by  the  other,  form  a  whole. 

With  the  Catholics,  preaching  has  little  place  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  is  almost  everything  with  us.  Except  at  certain 
spasons  of  worship  and  on  certam  days  of  the  year,  the  tem- 
ple is  an  auditory.  It  seems  to  have  no  other  purpose  than 
to  gather  hearers  around  a  man  who  speaks  to  them.     Thus 


22  INTKODUCTION. 

we  say  of  the  Catholic,  he  goes  to  mass,  of  the  Protestant, 
he  goes  to  sermon.  We  thus  unconsciously  give  perhaps 
too  exclusive  predominance  to  preaching  in  Protestant  wor- 
ship. Among  other  inconveniences,  this  system  has  that  of 
attributing  too  much  to  the  individual. 

This  is  not  inconsistent  with  what  we  said  of  the  transmis- 
sion of  truth  from  one  individual  to  another.  Nevertheless,  is 
it  not  possible  that  the  habit  of  going  to  the  temple  only  to 
hear  discourses,  and  making  little  of  all  the  rest,  has  the  effect 
of  displaying  only  a  person  and  an  occasion,  a  preacher  and 
preaching  1  And  is  it  not  important  that  the  efficacy  of  worship 
should  be  more  independent  of  the  person  of  the  preacher.* 

Be  this  as  it  may,  in  both  the  forms  of  worship  which  have 
suggested  these  observations,  the  word  is  of  high  import- 
ance. In  the  one  as  in  the  other,  a  minister  is  essentially  a 
man  who  speaks  the  word  of  God.  Now,  may  the  word  of 
preaching,  which  is  a  word  of  reconciliation  or  of  sanctifica- 
tion,  "according  to  the  oracles  of  God,"  (1  Peter,  iv.  11,)  be 
reduced  to  an  art  1 

Eloquence,  certainly,  is  always  the  same ;  it  is  not  one  thing 
in  the  pulpit  and  another  in  the  senate  or  at  the  bar.  There 
are  not  two  rhetorics  any  more  than  two  logics.  Still,  the  na- 
ture of  ecclesiastical  discourse  involves  differences,  adds  rules, 
which  constitute  a  particular  art  under  the  name  of  Homiletics. 

We  will  consider  first  what  is  common  to  Rhetoric  and 
Homiletics,  then  what  is  special  to  the  latter.  Rhetoric  is  the 
genus,  Homiletics  the  species. 

The  subject  matter  of  Rhetoric  corresponds  to  the  object 
oi public  eloquence.     What  is  eloquence  in  general  1 

La  Bruy  ere  tells  us  :  "  It  is  a  gift  of  the  soul  which  makes  us 
masters  of  the  mind  and  heart  of  others,  which  enables  us  to  in- 
spire them  as  we  will,  or  persuade  them  to  whatever  we  please."f 

*  See  Pastoral  Theology,  pp.  25,  28,  of  our  translation. 

f  La  Bruyere  Les  Caracteres,  chap,  i.  Dcs  ouvrages  de  Vesprit. 


INTKODUCTION.  23 

I  would  say,  it  is  the  gift  of  acquiring  the  mastery  by  lan- 
guage, for  a  gesture,  a  look,  may  be  eloquent.  It  relates,  too, 
to  continued  discourse,  and  not  to  one  word  only.  La  Bruy- 
ere  points  out  to  us  the  source  and  effect  of  eloquence  rather 
than  its  nature ;  there  is  still,  however,  something  of  im- 
portance in  his  definition.  Eloquence  is  a  gift^  and  a  gift  of 
the  soul.  It  is  the  gift  of  thinking  and  feeling  with  others 
as  they  think  and  feel,  and  of  suiting  to  their  thought  the 
words  and  the  movement  of  our  discourse,  of  speaking  the 
thoughts  of  others. 

Eloquence  rests  on  sympathy.  One  can  never  be  elo- 
quent except  as  he  can  speak  or  write  under  an  influence  from 
those  to  whom  he  addresses  himself;  they  must  Inspire  him, 
and  unless  this  condition  is  met,  he  may  be  profound  and 
interesting,  but  he  cannot  be  eloquent.  In  order  to  be  elo- 
quent, he  must  feel  the  necessity  of  communicating  his  life 
to  others,  and  of  comprehending  intimately  what  chords  must 
be  made  to  vibrate  within  them. 

Pascal,  penetrating  farther  into  the  secret  of  eloquence 
than  La  Bruyere,  says :  "  Eloquence  consists  in  a  corre- 
spondence which  we  endeavor  to  establish  between  the  mind 
and  heart  of  those  to  whom  we  speak,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  thought  and  expressions  which  we  employ  on  the  other. 
And  this  supposes  that  we  have  carefully  studied  the  human 
heart,  to  know  all  its  recesses,  and  then  how  we  may  be  able 
to  adapt  to  them  justly-arranged  discourse-  We  must  put 
ourselves  in  the  place  of  those  who  are  to  hear  us,  and  try 
on  our  own  heart  the  train  of  thought  which  we  give  to  our 
discourse,  to  ascertain  if  one  be  suited  to  the  other,  and 
whether  we  may  confidently  expect  that  the  hearer  will  be 
obliged  to  yield  to  us."* 

What  with  La  Bruyere  was  a  gift,  with  Pascal  was  a  meth- 
od. But  it  is  at  once  a  gift  and  a  method.  And  the  same 
*  Pascal,  Pewsees,  Partie  ii.,  Art.  xvii,  §  105. 


24  INTEODUCTION. 

idea  meets  us  under  each  point  of  view,  namely,  the  vital  and 
inward  penetration  of  the  hearer's  soul  by  that  of  the  or- 
ator. We  find  yet  another  element — that  of  persuasion — 
the  determinate  direction  of  the  soul  and  the  will.  Elo- 
quence in  the  sense  of  La  Bruyere  and  Pascal  is  an  exercise 
of  real  life,  an  effort  against  a  resistance,  a  compulsion,'^  a 
drama  we  may  say,  in  which  only  one  person  appears,  but 
in  which  there  are  two,  and  which  has  its  plot,  its  incidents, 
and  its  catastrophe.  The  catastrophe  may  be,  in  some  cases, 
a  determination,  a  voluntary  act  of  him  to  whom  we  speak ; 
in  others,  a  feeling  which  is  also  an  act,  and  in  a  religious 
and  philosophical  point  of  view,  is  an  act  par  excellence. 

Thus,  without  denying  the  epithet  eloquent  to  language 
suited  to  convey  light  and  conviction  to  the  mind,  we 
apply  it  more  particularly  to  that  whose  purpose  and  effect 
is  to  determine  the  will  in  a  certain  way,  or  to  a  certain  act, 
immediate  or  eventual. 

But  is  there  only  the  subjective,  is  there  nothing  objective 
in  the  notion  of  eloquence  1  According  to  Pascal  and  La 
Bruyere,  it  is  a  power  which  lends  itself  indifferently  to  evil 
and  to  good,  to  error  and  to  truth.  If  it  be  so,  must  we  not 
utterly  repel  both  eloquence  and  rhetoric  which  is  its  theory 
or  method  % 

I  adopt  the  principle  and  deny  the  consequence.  It  is 
not  to  be  doubted  that  there  is  in  eloquence  a  power  of 
persuasion  to  evil  as  well  as  to  good,  and  that  the  princi- 
ple of  this  power  in  both  cases,  is  the  gift  of  finding  and 
giving  vibration  to  certain  chords  in  the  heart.  We  may, 
if  we  will,  refuse  to  apply  the  word  eloquence  to  both  re- 
sults, but  what  do  we  gain  1  A  word.  It  were  better,  I 
think,  while  we  acknowledge  that  bad  men  may  be  eloquent, 
and  that  one  may  be  eloquent  in  advocating  what  is  evil,  to 
add  on  the  other  side — 

*  Compelle  intrare. 


INTEODUCTION.  25 

1.  That  however  man  may  be  inclined  to  evil,  evil  has  no 
witness  or  representative  in  his  conscience;  that  truth,  on 
the  contrary,  has  its  witness  in  the  depths  of  his  soul ;  that 
he  acknowledges  her  when  she  shows  herself,  and  that  "  if 
the  flesh  be  weak  the  spirit  is  willing."*  It  hence  results  that 
eloquence  is  more  strictly  allied  to  truth  than  to  error,  to 
good  than  to  evil.  Truth  is  in  itself  eloquent ;  we  do  not 
make  it  eloquent,  we  only  disclose  it ;  truth,  in  whatever  sense 
we  take  the  word,  is  the  condition  and  substance  itself  of 
eloquence.  In  order  to  persuade  to  evil,  we  must  give  it 
the  appearance  of  good. 

2.  What  is  not  perhaps  the  definition  of  eloquence,  is  its 
rule ;  or  if  you  will,  the  rule  of  eloquence  shall  be  our  de- 
finition of  it.  Eloquence,  we  say,  is  a  deliverer,  who  comes 
to  the  aid  of  good  principle  against  bad,  of  truth  against 
error.  Yet  more  we  say,  that  although  the  object  or  the  life 
which  eloquence  has  in  view  is  always  drawn  immediately  from 
affection^  and  although  the  orator's  object  consequently,  is  to 
create  or  develop  affection,  he  cannot  but  make  it  conform- 
able to  eternal  and  divine  ideas,  and  that  in  this  sense  only, 
eloquence  is  a  power  for  liberty  and  not  a  power  for  tyranny. 

3.  The  just  inference  from  the  feet  we  have  affirmed  is,  that 
the  more  eloquence  is  used  in  the  service  of  error,  the  more 
sliould  it  be  used  in  the  service  of  truth,  and  that  truth 
should  be  defended  with  the  weapons  of  truth.  Its  best  ad- 
vocates too  often  dissemble ;  and  that  because  faith  in  truth, 
which  alone  gives  us  courage,  is  rare.  It  is  treachery  to  a 
holy  cause,  to  employ  in  its  defence  means  which  are  not 
suitable  to  it.  Indeed,  to  be  eloquent  is  to  be  true ;  to  be 
eloquent  is  not  to  add  anything  to  truth,  it  is  to  remove  one 
after  another  the  veils  that  cover  it ;  and  this  process  is  not 
negative,  for  truth  lies  in  facts.  In  this  sense,  Pascal  is  an 
orator  'par  excellence^  because  he  is  as  nakedly  true  as  pos- 

*  Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew,  xxvL,  41, 
2 


26  INTEODUCTION. 

sible.  But  truth  lies  not  in  facts  alone ;  it  lies  also  in  the 
sense  of  truth.  To  unite  one's  self  to  truth,  to  be  sympa- 
thetic with  one's  subject,  is  to  be  true  a  second  time.  Truth 
spoken  with  love,  will  it  be  less  truth  ?  No,  doubtless,  but 
what  is  truth  within  us,  when  separated  from  us  is  no  longer 
truth. 

These  requisites  to  eloquence  in  general  are  complicated 
with  those  which  are  peculiar  to  public  discourse.  And  all 
taken  together,  constitute  the  art  of  oratory. 

An  oratorical  discourse  is  a  discourse  delivered  to  an  as- 
sembly with  the  view  of  inculcating  on  it  certain  ideas,  im- 
pressing it  with  certain  sentiments,  or  inducing  certain  re- 
solves, or  of  doing  these  three  things  at  once.  The  last, 
however,  is  the  final  purpose ;  that  in  relation  to  which  the 
0^  other  two  are  means,  instruments.  The  orator  should  ad- 
dress the  heart  as  well  as  the  understanding,  since  his  desire 
is  to  reach  the  will,  and  our  will  is  under  the  control  of  our 
affections.* 

Oratorical  discourse  thus  appears  as  a  contest,  a  combat ; 
this  idea  is  essential  to  it.  At  one  time,  the  orator  combats 
an  error  by  a  truth ;  at  another,  he  opposes  one  sentiment 
to  another  sentiment.  In  its  just  use,  oratory  is  a  combat 
waged  against  errors  of  the  mind  and  heart,  with  the  weapon 
of  speech.  The  orator  seeks  to  make  himself  master  of  our 
will.  His  attempt  is  a  bold  aggression ;  he  lays  siege  to 
the  soul  as  though  it  were  a  fort ;  a  fort,  however,  which  he 
can  never  take  unless  he  keeps  himself  informed  of  the  in- 
terior of  the  place ;  for  eloquence  is  but  an  appeal  to  sym- 
pathy. Its  secret  consists  in  disengaging  and  arresting  prop- 
erties in  others  which  correspond  to  what  is  in  us,  and  in 
every  one ;  its  object  is  to  lay  hold  of  a  hand  which,  un- 
known to  ourselves,  we  are  ever  extending  to  it.     It  arms  it- 

*  On  the  province  of  emotion  in  eloquence,  see  Part  i.,  Section 
ii.,  Chapter  ii.,  §  2. 


INTEODUCTION.  27 

self  against  us  from  ourselves  ;  it  fortifies  itself  by  our  ad- 
missions ;  it  supplies  itself  from  our  gifts ;  with  our  confess, 
ions  it  overwhelms  us.  In  other  words,  the  orator  invokes 
intellectual  and  moral  principles,  which  we  hold  in  common 
with  him,  and  does  but  enforce  conclusions  from  these  prem- 
ises. He  proves  to  us  that  we  agree  with  him,  and  causes 
us  to  feel  and  like  this  agreement.  In  a  word,  as  has  been 
said,  in  a  bold  form  of  speech,  we  are  only  convinced  of  what 
we  believed  before.* 

We  must  distinguish  oratorical  discourse  from  didactic 
discourse,  which  concludes  with  an  idea,  and  from  poetry 
which  has  no  conclusion,  and  of  which  the  purpose  is  not  out 
of  itself,  but  in  itself.  Oratorical  discourse  is  ultimately  an 
appeal  to  the  will. 

All  that  we  have  just  said  is  essentially  embraced  in  Ho- 
miletics,  the  object  of  which  is  to  furnish  the  preacher  with 
rules  and  instructions  drawn  from  the  purpose  of  all  elo- 
quence, and  from  the  special  purpose  of  Christian  discourse, 
including  the  circumstances  in  which  it  is  pronounced. 

What  is  that  religious  oratorical  discourse  which  is  com- 
monly called  the  sermon  ? 

We  have  to  define  what,  apart  from  our  idea,  has  no  real 
existence,  what  is  not,  independently  of  the  idea  we  form 
of  it,  since  it  is  our  idea  itself  which  makes  it  what  it  is. 
As  the  object  has  not  been  given,  the  definition  becomes  a 
rule  or  a  declaration  of  principles. 

What  has  been  given,  is,  the  purpose,  the  necessity,  the 
general  and  unchangeable  object  of  preaching  and  of  wor- 
ship. Our  definition,  of  course,  is  to  be  neither  wider  nor 
more  contracted  than  this  object,  and  must  allow  the  preach- 
er, within  the  limits  of  Christian  truth,  all  the  space  which 

*  Vinet,  Chrestomathie  Francaise,  tome  iii.,  Reflexion  sur  I'elo- 
quence,  a  la  suite  du  Discours  de  Royer  Gollard,  sur  le  project  de  loi 
relatif  au  sacrilege. 


28  INTEODUCTION. 

the  variety  of  places,  times,  and  circumstances,  and  his  own 
individuality,  demand. 

We  now  define  the  sermon.  It  is  a  discourse  incorporated 
with  public  worship,  and  designed,  concurrently  or  alterna- 
tively, to  conduct  to  Christian  truth  one  who  has  not  yet  be- 
lieved in  it,  and  to  explain  and  apply  it  to  those  who  admit 
it.  The  Apostles  Paul  and  Peter  give  the  same  idea  of 
preaching.  "  A  bishop,"  says  the  first,  "  should  be  able,  by 
sound  doctrine,  both  to  exhort  and  to  convince  the  gainsay- 
ers."  (Titus,  i.  9.)  "  I  will  not  be  negligent,"  says  the  sec- 
ond, "  to  put  you  always  in  remembrance  of  these  things, 
though  ye  know  them  and  be  established  in  the  present 
truth."  (2  Peter,  i.  12.) 

We  distinguish  two  classes  of  hearers,  which  we  designate 
by  the  names  believers  and  non-believers^  (the  latter  substi- 
tuted for  unbelievers^  which  is  too  often  employed,  but  which 
has  quite  a  different  meaning.)  Into  which  of  these  two  divi- 
sions should  we  put  the  auditory,  which  the  preacher  finds  in 
the  temple  1  According  to  the  definition,  we  are  to  distribute 
them  into  both.  We  cannot  do  this  consistently  with  the 
idea  of  a  religious  assembly.  The  temple  is  supposed  to  be 
filled  with  believers^  met  for  a  common  worship.  But  the 
reality,  the  evidence  is  against  this  idea,  and  in  the  actual 
state  of  things,  the  supposition  of  the  existence  of  both  classes 
is  reasonable.  The  minister,  however,  is  not  to  alternate 
between  the  two  classes,  and  to  apportion  among  them  his 
discourse  or  discourses.  The  two  objects  of  preaching  are 
not  separated  in  so  definitive  a  manner.  What  is  addressed 
to  infidels  may  be  profitable  to  believers  ;  what  is  addressed 
to  believers  may  be  profitable  to  infidels.  As  to  the  latter, 
everything  in  Christian  preaching  is  adapted  to  convert  them ; 
as  to  believers,  do  they  not,  in  one  sense,  always  need  to  be 
converted  ?  Not  that  special  sermons  are  to  be  excluded,  but 
that  there  is  no  part  of  evangelical  truth  which  is  not  appli- 


INTRODUCTION.  29 

cable  to  all.  Although  the  changes  of  the  spiritual  life 
should  be  distinguished  by  different  names,  they  are  always 
but  changes  of  the  same  work.  The  work  of  God  in  con- 
version and  then  in  sanctification,  is  indeed  one  continuous 
and  indivisible  work.  The  sermons,  therefore,  of  sanctifica- 
tion and  of  appeal,  so  called,  suit  both  classes.  They  are  the 
fat  pastures,  the  green  folds  of  the  prophet,  the  grass  of  which 
nourishes  the  healthy  sheep,  and  heals  those  which  are  sick, 
(Ezekiel,  xxxiv.  13-16.)  Very  oflen  we  are  better  taught 
by  preaching  which  is  addressed  to  a  class  to  which  we  are 
not  thought  to  belong.*  It  is  a  fact  of  experience  that  men 
are  often  led  to  the  Gospel  by  preaching,  which  regarding  the 
hearer  as  on  the  highest  summits  of  the  spiritual  life,  was 
not  addressed  to  them,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  sermons 
of  pure  appeal  which  might  well  be  addressed  to  pagans, 
have  produced  the  deepest  compunction  in  advanced  Chris- 
tians. "  All  scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  is 
profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction  in  right- 
eousness," (2  Timothy,  iii.  16.)  Why  should  not  esoteric 
preaching  have  power  to  convert  those  who  are  without, 
since  it  is  found  that  the  simple  contemplation  of  the  Chris- 
tian life  gains  many  souls  to  the  gospel '?  They  are  at  first 
surprised  ;  many  things  indeed  appear  inconceivable  to  them, 
but  they  are  struck  at  the  same  time  with  the  beauty  of  their 
bearings,  of  their  harmony,  and  they  are  led  to  inquire  more 
attentively  into  their  explanation.  Preaching  of  this  char- 
acter exerts  an  irresistible  attraction. 

The  object  of  pulpit  eloquence,  we  are  aware,  as  indeed 
that  of  all  eloquence,  is  to  determine  the  will ;  but  this  ob- 
ject is  closely  combined  with  that  of  instruction.  Eloquence 
is  but  the  form,  the  edge  so  to  speak  of  instruction.  The 
preacher  is  a  teacher  under  the  form  of  an  orator.     These 

*  Let  the  affectation  of  unconcern  and  indifference  in  certain  per- 
sons at  certain  times  be  remembered. 


80  INTEODUCTION. 

two  objects  may,  indeed,  if  one  so  chooses,  be  combined  in 
all  eloquence ;  but  in  preaching,  instruction  is  more  prom- 
inent, exists  more  for  itself  than  in  other  kinds  of  eloquence. 
"  I  have  often  said  to  myself,"  says  Reinhard,  "  that,  after 
all,  the  Christian  preacher  is  more  an  instructor  than  an 
orator."* 

Two  things  distinguish  other  kinds  of  oratory  from  that 
of  the  pulpit.  1.  A  particular  circumstance,  an  interest 
peculiar  to  a  certain  exigence,  is  the  occasion  of  discourse  in 
the  senate  or  at  the  bar.  2.  The  political  or  judicial  orator 
contemplates,  as  the  result  of  his  effort,  an  act  which  is  to 
take  place  at  the  rising  of  the  assembly.  The  preacher,  on 
the  contrary,  does  not  seek  an  immediate  and  visible  result ; 
but,  in  general,  only  hopes  to  produce  a  certain  disposition  of 
soul,  with  reference  to  such  or  such  an  object.  This  internal 
act,  this  invisible  result,  is  all  that  the  preacher  aims  at. 

The  preacher's  chief  business  is  instruction ;  this  is  the 
basis  of  his  work ;  exhortation,  reproof,  sharpens  his  teach- 
ing, but  it  is  always  teaching.  Teaching  may  be  eloquent ; 
much  more  exhortation,  even  when  it  does  not  respect 
a  particular  act  which  is  immediate  and  palpable ;  but  re- 
gard to  such  an  act  gives  rise  to  differences  which  seem 
to  be  in  favor  of  the  other  kinds  of  discourse,  differences 
for  which  the  preacher  can  have  no  compensation  without 
violating  the  nature  of  pulpit  discourse.  The  orator  of 
the  senate  or  the  bar  is  more  naturally  eloquent ;  he  has 
to  do  with  actuality ;  his  auditory  is  interested,  is  already 
excited;  it  matters  little  whether  for  or  against  him; 
either  is  better  than  the  inertia  [plumbea  moles)  which 
the  preacher  has  to  encounter,  and  which  he  has  to  remove 
by  abstract  truths.  Let  him  not  forsake  this  office  ;  let  him 
solicit  from  the  truth  itself,  from  God,  that  eloquence  which 

*  "  Ich  sagte  mir  immer,  der  christliche  Prediger  sey  dock  mehr 
Lchrcr  ah  Redner." — liEiNnAuo's  Gestwudnisse,  p.  84. 


INTRODUCTION.  81 

is  not  to  be  drawn  from  his  circumstances.  He  must  not 
make  a  position  for  himself  like  that  of  the  lawyer  or  the 
senator.  Instruction  supposes  calmness  of  which  vehemence 
cannot  take  the  place  without  putting  an  end  to  instruction 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  There  is  a  calm  as  well  as 
a  vehement  eloquence ;  and  when  we  spoke  of  eloquence  as 
of  so  much  importance,  we  meant  by  it,  not  a  particular 
means,  but  the  assemblage  of  the  means,  which  are  suited  to 
enlighten  the  understanding  and  determine  the  will.  This 
does  not  imply  that  preaching  is  to  be  without  vivacity  and 
earnestness  ;  which  it  camiot  but  have,  if  the  preacher  does 
but  remember  that  he  perhaps  speaks  to  souls  who  are  hear- 
mg  the  message  of  peace,  for  the  first  and  the  last  time. 
But  this  thought  must  not  cause  him  to  neglect  instruction. 
Explication  is  slow  work,  and  we  are  tempted  to  desist  from 
it  and  to  preach  to  the  nerves  of  our  hearers.  God,  on  the 
contrary,  commands  us  to  preach  to  their  souls,  their  con- 
science. Let  us  not  be  too  eager  for  results,  let  us  not  be 
more  urgent  than  God,  who  alone  knows  the  time  for  every- 
thing. There  is  no  inconsistency  in  instructing  at  once  with 
calmness  and  affectionate  earnestness. 

Besides,  the  pulpit  orator  has  to  choose,  and  in  one  sense, 
invent  his  subjects  ;  circumstances  seldom  exempt  him  from 
this  necessity.  His  ministry,  comprehensively,  is  a  matter  of 
business,  but  not  each  particular  instance  of  his  preaching. 

Not  only  does  teaching  predominate  in  the  eloquence  of  * 
the  pulpit ;  the  preacher,  we  add,  has  a  document  as  the  basis 
of  his  eloquence.  As  we  have  before  said,  he  speaks  the 
Word  of  God.  Alternately  he  adverts  to  this  document 
and  makes  it  liis  point  of  departure.  By  turns  he  is  a  lawyer 
and  a  magistrate ;  a  lawyer,  when  he  pleads  before  the 
conscience  for  the  adoption  of  the  document ;  a  magistrate, 
when  he  demands  man's  obedience  to  the  document  as 
adopted.     The  Orator  at  the  bar  has  a  document  also,  the 


32  INTRODUCTION. 

law ;  but  he  does  not  plead  like  the  preacher,  in  favor  of  the 
law;  and  in  the  application  of  his  subjects  he  is  very  far 
from  contemplating  the  scenes  which  lie  before  the 
preacher's  eyes. 

Finally,  while  the  oratorical  process  is  always  a  combat, 
the  combat  in  preaching  is  waged  against  an  idea,  not  a  per- 
sonal adversary ;  so  that,  this  among  all  kinds  of  oratory  is 
alone  in  not  presenting  the  spectacle  of  a  debate.  Yet  it  is 
in  truth  a  debate,  but  the  same  orator  has  to  perform  two 
parts,  so  to  speak,  of  which  but  one  is  his  own  ;  he  repro- 
duces in  order  to  refute  them,  the  arguments  of  the  adverse 
party,  who  is  an  unregenerate  man.  Each  hearer  includes  in 
himself  more  or  less  the  two  contending  parties. 

We  subjoin,  that  a  great  part  of  the  preacher's  task  con- 
sists in  winning  the  stage  of  the  conflict.  The  preacher  is 
an  advocate  who  pleads  the  cause  of  God  before  a  bench  of 
corrupt  judges,  whom  it  is  his  first  business  to  render  just. 

We  conclude  by  removing  two  errors  :  one  relating  to 
too  small,  the  other  to  too  great  expectations  from  Homilet- 
ics,  or  rather  (for  under  an  appearance  of  moderation,  they 
are  truly  absolute  opinions  that  we  encounter,)  some  see  all 
in  the  art,  others  see  nothing.  In  each  case  we  can  only  dis- 
cuss the  absolute  opinion.  The  degree,  the  shadow  of  the 
other  escapes  us.     We  begin  with  the  last. 

They  send  us  back  from  art  to  nature.  And  their  opinion 
is  condensed  in  these  two  words :  Nature  is  a  sufficient  guide ; 
nature  is  a  surer  guide. 

What  first  strikes  us  in  this  argument,  is  an  opposition  be- 
tween nature  and  art  which  is  imaginary  ;  for,  very  far  from 
being  opposed  to  each  other,  the  distinction  itself  between 
nature  and  art,  it  is  not  easy  to  establish.  Language  is  often 
oljliged  (as  the  moral  sciences  abundantly  show  us)  to  pre- 
sent, as  two  different  things,  under  two  distinct  names,  what 
are  truly  two  changes,  two   degrees,  or  two  relations  of 


INTEODUCTION.  33 

the  same  thing.  Thus,  in  another  sphere,  nature  is  opposed 
to  civilization,  or  the  art  of  living  in  society,  as  if  civilization 
were  not  natural,  as  if  the  spontaneous  development  of  a 
germ  were  less  natural  than  the  germ  itself,  as  if  the  oak  were 
less  natural  than  the  acorn  !  With  as  little  reason  is  nature 
opposed  to  art.  What,  in  tinith,  is  art  but  nature  still  ?  Art, 
from  the  first  moment,  is  present  in  every  creation  ;  if  then 
you  would  exclude  art,  where  will  you  begin  the  exclusion  1 
You  see  at  once  that  you  can  never  ascend  high  enough. 
What  we  call  nature,  or  talent,  is,  unconsciously  to  itself, 
only  a  more  consummate,  more  spontaneous  art.  What  we 
call  art,  is  but  prolonged  or  perfected  instinct,  which,  in  all 
cases,  is  only  a  more  elementary  and  more  rapid  process  of 
reasoning.  If  instinct  removes  the  first  difficulties  that  pre- 
sent themselves,  will  it  also  remove  the  next  1  That  is  the 
question.  And  it  presents  itself  again  under  another  form. 
Does  Looking  hinder  us  from  seeing  1  Does  not  Looking 
aid  us  in  seeing  ? 

Art,  in  effect,  which  we  must  not  confound  with  artifice, 
is,  in  all  cases,  but  the  serious  search  for  means  suited  to  an 
end ;  so  that,  to  renounce  art,  we  must  first  prove  that,  at 
the  first  attempt,  the  whole  and  the  best  possible  is  found. 
Till  this  be  done,  we  ask  what  harm  can  art  do, — ^what  harm 
especially  requiring  adherence  to  the  terms  of  the  objection, 
art  is  hostile  to  nature  1  Laying  aside  certain  privileged 
geniuses,  whom  Providence  has  reduced  to  pure  emotion,  or 
with  whom  art  has  all  the  spontaneity  of  instinct,  I  am  sure, 
that  inspiration  being  assumed,  (which  it  is  agreed  is  the  first 
requisite,)  the  work  of  art  is  always  essentially  one  with 
truth  and  nature.  I  am  yet  to  be  informed  in  what  particu- 
lar, works  in  which  art  is  neglected,  on  system,  have  the  ad- 
vantage, so  far  as  they  are  natural,  over  those  in  which  the 
principles  and  mstrumeuts  of  art  have  been  applied.  Much 
more  than  this,  we  may  say  that  generally  and  in  every 

2* 


34  INTRODUCTION. 

sphere,  art  sends  us  back  to  nature.  We  are  not  naturally 
so  natural  as  we  are  .thought  to  be.  The  barbarian  is  not 
simple.  Civilization  seeks,  with  more  or  less  of  success,  to 
reconnect  our  life  and  our  manners  with  manifestations  of  na- 
ture, which  she  incessantly  retraces  with  her  skilful  chisel. 
The  triumph  of  Christianity  is  the  reintegration  of  nature ; 
for  nothing  is  less  according  to  nature  than  sin,  and  nothing 
more  than  sin  estranges  us  from  nature.  In  religion,  in  civ- 
ilization, the  progress  of  humanity  is  essentially  a  restora- 
tion. We  do  not  advance,  we  retrograde,  because  we  have 
to  do  so.  It  will  be  very  strange  if  the  work  of  the 
writer  forms  an  exception  to  this  universal  law.  This 
law,  in  fact,  prevails  in  spite  of  him  ;  and  these  despisers  of 
art,  in  regard  to  eloquence,  apply  to  their  productions,  with- 
out suspecting  it,  the  art  of  all,  in  default  of  art  in  them- 
selves. To  a  certain  degree,  they  are  artists  in  spite  of 
themselves. 

We  must  be  careful  as  to  consequences.  To  exclude  art, 
that  is  to  say,  reflection,  from  one  of  the  gravest  spheres 
of  human  activity,  is  to  proscribe  reading,  observation,  and 
method,  in  all  spheres,  which  is  to  renounce  perfection.  No- 
thing that  may  be  said  of  the  necessity  of  conversion,  and 
the  power  concerned  in  conversion,  forbids  us  to  think  that 
there  is  an  art  and  a  method  of  living  well  for  the  con- 
vert ;  this  all  readily  consent  to.  I  inquire,  then,  why  there 
should  not  be  an  art  and  a  method  of  speaking  well.  Con- 
version is  but  a  talent^  which  art  cultivates  and  makes  pro- 
ductive. 

May  not  genius,  it  will  be  asked,  dispense  with  it  ?  If 
genius  may  have  a  dispensation,  we  do  not  think  it  should  be 
in  haste  to  avail  itself  of  it.  Genius  has  a  method  for  itself, 
but  yet  it  is  a  method  ;  and  if  poverty  so  readily  leads  to 
prodigality,  why  then  we  must  be  rich  in  order  to  be  eco- 
nomical.   This  great  word  genius  is  imposing,  we  would  make 


INTEODUCTION.  35 

of  it  I  know  not  what  sort  of  magic ;  but  as  genius  is  only  o 
the  most  excellent  of  instincts,  the  most  favorable  of  starting- 
points,  it  will  not  oppose  itself  to  that  law,  which  does  every- 
thing by  weight,  number  and  measure,  that  is  done  in  the 
world,  and  which  permits  wisdom  of  no  kind  to  be  a  super- 
fluity. Moreover,  possess  genius  and  we  shall  observe  your 
course ;  possess  by  all  means  a  club,  but  tie  to  it  your  bun- 
dle of  rods ;  possess  wings  and  fly,  but  while  you  are  wait- 
ing, learn  to  walk. 

We  concede  only  this,  and  we  do  it  very  willingly,  that 
as  instinct  by  depending  on  itself  becomes  art,  art  by  exercising 
itself  becomes  instinct.  Art  is  nothing  more  than  an  intel-  ' 
ligent  instinct.  It  involuntarily  follows  rules  ;  it  becomes  in 
its  sphere  what  habit  is  in  the  moral  life,  a  second  nature. 
It  is  as  natural  and  as  easy  to  those  who  have  cultivated  th^eir 
instinct  to  write  well  and  to  do  well,  as  it  is  to  those  who 
have  left  it  uncultivated  to  write  badly  or  do  badly  ;  they 
are  no  longer  able  to  refrain  from  it.  There  is  nature  in 
the  termination  as  well  as  in  the  outset. 

Others  would  make  religion  a  substitute  for  study  and  art. 
They  rely  on  the  general  spirit  of  Christianity,  which,  say 
they,  illustrates  strength  in  weakness,  and  demonstrates  the 
power  of  truth  in  the  absence  and  to  the  exclusion  of  purely 
human  means. 

So  far  from  denying  this  general  spirit  of  Christianity,  we 
rejoice  to  proclaim  it.  But  how  shall  we  abide  faithful  to  it  ? 
Undoubtedly  not  by  giving  the  flesh  as  an  aid  to  the  spirit ; 
which  would  be  giving  the  spirit  its  mortal  enemy  as  an  aid, 
calling  death  to  the  support  of  life,  taking  an  obstacle  for  an 
instrument.  Now  the  question  is,  whether  art  applied  to 
preaching  is  a  carnal  auxiliary,  an  instrument  whose  tendency 
is  opposed  to  the  end  we  have  in  view.  But  tliis  art,  call  it  • 
by  what  name  you  please,  is  nothing  elsie  than  observation, 
reflection,  experience  applied  to  the  explication  of  truth.    Are 


36  INTRODUCTION. 

all  these  to  be  condemned  ?  On  the  contrary,  are  they  not 
the  natural  auxiliaries  of  truth,  and  in  employing  them  in  its 
service,  are  we  not  simply  giving  it  its  own '?  Is  it  not  by 
these  means  that  we  have  learned,  that  we  have  understood 
the  truth  ?  If  under  a  divine  direction  we  have  applied  them 
in  convincing  ourselves,  are  we  to  be  prohibited  from  the  use 
of  them  in  convincing  others'?  Sooner  might  it  be  said  (if 
it  could  be  proved),  that  man  in  the  work  of  the  ministry 
is  to  pass  for  nothing  ;  that  he  must  restrict  himself  to  the 
mere  repetition  of  inspired  words ;  in  other  terms,  that 
preaching  should  be  suppressed.  But  if  it  be  admitted  that 
the  preacher  is  a  man,  it  is  well  assuredly  that  he  applies  him- 
self to  his  work ;  that  he  infuses  himself  entirely  into  it ;  that 
in  the  full  force  of  the  expression  he  speaks  the  word  of 
God ;  this  itself  is  sanctioning  the  study  and  the  practice  of 
an  art,  which  is  nothing  but  the  rational  and  thoughtful  use 
of  all  the  natural  means  which  are  at  the  preacher's  com- 
mand. 

It  is  undoubtedly  God  who  converts,  but  he  converts  man 
by  means  of  man :  We  here  have  a  principle  and  a  fact.  I. 
speak  of  man  as  personal,  living,  moral.  To  admit  the  fact, 
is  to  admit  of  art  in  preaching ;  otherwise  should  we  not 
have  a  man  without  his  thought,  or  shall  he  have  thought  and 
be  forbid  the  exercise  of  reason  in  what  he  does  1  And  if 
he  is  permitted  to  reason,  shall  he  reason  by  halves  ?  If  the 
Holy  Spirit  does  not  hold  the  pen,  the  preacher  must  needs 
hold  it  himself;  if  he  is  not  inspired,  he  must  reflect.  Lay- 
ing aside  inspiration,  I  cannot  see  why  he  should  tru^.t  his  first 
impulse  rather  than  reflection,  chance  rather  than  art.  Docs  the 
first  thought  come  from  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  second  from 
the  man  ?  Is  not  the  first  thought  from  the  man  as  well  as  the 
second  ?  and  in  each  case,  has  not  the  man  recourse  to  himself? 
Is  there  more  faithfulness  on  the  first  system  than  on  thesecond? 
On  the  contrary,  let  it  be  once  admitted  that  the  man  is  to  have 


INTRODUCTION.  37 

recourse  to  himself,  and  faithfulness  consists  in  drawing  fi-oin 
himself  the  best  and  the  most  perfect  of  whatever  he  has,  in 
joining  to  the  first  emotion  which  perhaps  was  involuntary, 
a  second  which  is  not ;  in  a  word,  in  joining  to  natural  force 
that  which  is  acquired,  and  which  does  not  seem  opposed 
to  it.  Is  it  not  forgotten  that  our  real  virtues  are  acquired 
ones, — works  of  art  ?  We  cannot  trust  ourselves  to  our 
first  impressions ;  we  must  correct  these  by  those  which  fol- 
low. It  is  in  this,  not  in  indolence  of  thought,  that  faithful- 
ness consists,  and  that  the  blessing  is  found.  It  is  with  talent 
and  with  art  as  with  riches,  of  which  it  has  been  said,  "  make 
to  yourselves  friends  of  the  unrighteous  mammon."  (Luke, 
xvi.  9.) 

In  vain  do  we  despise  means;  indeed,  in  despising  we  / 
use  them :  whatever  of  ourselves  we  put  into  our  ministry, 
little  as  it  may  be,  belongs  to  the  category  of  means.  The 
first  means  is  ourselves ;  if  we  must  use  this  means,  we 
should  do  it  as  completely  and  perfectly  as  possible.  "  Let 
all  that  is  in  us,  the  spirit,  the  soul  and  the  body,  be  pre- 
served blameless  unto  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 
(1  Thessalonians,  v.  23.) 

Man  is  the  medium  through  which  God  has  purposed  that  X 
truth  shall  come  to  man.     Truth  alone  is  luminous,  the  me- 
dium is  only  transparent.     But  let  it  be  indeed  transparent, 
and  as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  let  not  the  rays  of  ti'uth  be 
obscured  and  broken  by  fault  in  the  medium. 

We  concede  to  Bossuet,  that  God  condescends  to  employ 
means,  and  that  between  himself  and  man,  his  principal 
means  is  man,  without  comprehending  perhaps  the  full  ex- 
tent of  this  admission.  If  God  uses  means,  we  surely  may 
use  them ;  our  faculties  are  not  more  unworthy  of  us  than 
we  are  of  God ;  and  if  it  is  certain  that  God  consents  to  make 
man  his  instrument,  let  us  employ  the  whole  of  the  instru- 
ment, that  is  to  say,   the  whole  of  man  in  God's  service. 


38  INTRODUCTION. 

Now  man  comprises  art ;  man  essentially  is  an  artist ;  re- 
move art,  and  man  is  no  more  man. 

What,  moreover,  would  we  accomplish  by  means  of  art  ? 
Would  we  add  something  to  truth  1  We  have  said  that 
nothing  is  to  be  added  to  truth.  All  that  is  to  be  done,  is 
to  remove,  one  after  another,  the  veils  which  hide  truth  from 
the  view  of  man.  This  is  the  purpose  and  effect  of  elo- 
quence. And  this,  indeed,  shows  the  difference  between  false 
art  and  true.  For  nothing  could  be  more  arbitrary  and  less 
philosophical  than  to  say  that  true  art  is  that  which  despises 
detail,  since  art  in  detail  is  only  truth  in  detail. 

True  art  is  that  which  has  truth  for  its  object ;  false  art  is 
that  which  promotes  error  and  falsehood.  We  should,  more- 
over, if  possible,  be  perfect,  be  thorough  in  art  of  every  kind. 
It  is,  however,  true  that  each  kind  has  its  proprieties  which 
art  teaches  us  to  distinguish,  and  the  beautiful  excludes  the 
pretty.'^ 

We  oppose,  then,  to  the  principle  which  is  objected  to  us, 
the  fact,  the  institution  itself  of  God.  If  there  is  inconsist- 
ency between  the  principle  and  the  fact,  not  ours,  but  God's 
is  the  responsibility.  But  in  truth,  neither  on  us  nor  on 
God  is  there  any  responsibility ;  the  inconsistency  does  not 
exist.  When  it  is  said  that  truth  should  be  self-sufficient,  is 
it  meant  that  truth  is  not  to  be  spoken,  or  that  those  who 
speak  it  are  not  to  speak  it  as  men  who  understand  and  feel 
what  they  say  1  Is  it  meant  that  they  are  not  to  unite  them- 
selves to  it  ?  Is  truth  spoken  with  love,  something  more 
than  truth?  Why,  then,  should  truth  spoken  with  intelli- 
gence, be  something  more  than  truth  1  Is  not  the  adherence 
of  our  intellect,  as  well  as  of  our  heart,  to  truth,  its  natural 
right?  And  has  not  truth  a  full  right  of  possession  to  every- 
thing which  witnesses  to  this  adherence,  and  which  is  suited  to 
beget  it  in  other  minds  and  hearts  1  On  what  principle,  or 
*  Le  beau  exclut  le  joli. 


INTRODUCTION.  ^     39 

what  experience  do  they  rely,  who  think  that  something  im- 
methodic  and  unstudied  in  the  discourse  of  a  preacher,  best 
agrees  with  his  purpose,  or  that  the  abuse  of  an  art  is  art 
-par  excellence  ?     We  confess  ourselves  entirely  ignorant. 

It  may  be  surprising  to  some  that  we  take  so  much  pains 
in  combatting  an  opinion  which  has  so  little  weight.  But 
there  is  not  one  of  our  arguments  which  does  not  meet  a  prev- 
alent prejudice,  an  often-expressed  opinion.  And  therefore, 
without  fearing  to  be  somewhat  repetitious,  we  shall  discuss 
the  passages  which  have  been  commonly  objected  to  us. 

"  Take  no  thought  how  or  what  ye  shall  speak :  for  it  shall 
be  given  you  in  that  same  hour,  what  ye  shall  speak." 
(Matthew,  x.  19.)  This  direction  seems  to  be  connected 
with  a  promise  of  extraordinary  assistance.  When  no  such 
assistance  is  promised,  must  there  not  be  a  substitute  for  it  ? 

We  doubt  not,  indeed,  that  the  promise  of  this  assistance 
remains  to  us  in  all  cases  in  which  working  is  impossible, 
and  in  which  the  assistance  is  needed. 

These  two  cases  excepted,  unless  the  assistance  in  question 
be  in  its  principle  and  nature  unlike  all  the  aid  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  grants  the  believer,  we  say  that  the  promise  of 
this  assistance  is  not  against  the  use  of  human  means  ;  or 
that  if  the  human  means  implies  a  want  of  faith  in  this  case, 
it  does  the  same  in  all  cases.  We  should  not  supply  our- 
selves with  clothes  or  food,  because  it  is  written,  "  Take  no 
thought  what  ye  shall  eat,  or  what  ye  shall  drink,  or  where- 
withal ye  shall  be  clothed,  for  your  Heavenly  Father  know- 
eth  that  ye  have  need  of  all  these  things."  (Matthew,  vi. 
25,  32.) 

But  further,  we  give  a  much  loftier  direction  to  the  re- 
proach of  inconsistency,  though  the  reproach  in  truth  is  with- 
out any  object :  The  use  of  human  means  excludes  nei- 
ther the  necessity  of  aid  from  above,  nor  the  sense  of  that 
necessity.     With  the  hammer  and  trowel  in  hand,  the  work- 


40  INTKODUCTION. 

man  says  to  God,  "  Except  the  Lord  build  the  house,  they 
labor  in  vain  who  build  it."  (Psalm  exxvii.  1.)  The  ham- 
mer and  the  trowel  are  the  first  gifts  of  God,  the  first  testi- 
monials of  his  goodness,  the  first  causes  for  our  gratitude. 
Strength  and  the  will  to  act,  are  a  first  advance  of  the  Di- 
vine Lender.  We  do  not  say,  "  Work,  although  God  works 
within  you  to  will  and  to  do ;"  but  with  the  apostle,  "Work, 
because  God  works  in  you  to  will  and  to  do."  (Philippians, 
ii.  12,  13.) 

It  has  been  said,  that  Christian  wisdom  is.to  be  tranquil 
as  if  God  did  everything,  and  to  act  as  if  he  did  nothing. 
Let  us  rather  say  :  God  does  all ;  he  has  made  us, — us  who 
work ;  he  has  wrought  in  us  the  will  to  work ;  he  has 
wrought  by  us  all  that  we  accomplish ;  but  he  has  done  it 
by  us,  and  wills  not  to  do  it  otherwise.  After  having  worked 
however  abundantly,  we  are  not  the  less  required  on  that  ac- 
count to  say  with  Paul,  "  We  are  not  sufficient  of  ourselves 
even  to  think  anything  as  of  ourselves."  (2  Corinthians,  iii.  5.) 
Where  is  the  inconsistency  ? 

Another  citation :  "  Christ  sent  me  to  preach  the  gospel ; 
not  with  wisdom  of  words,  lest  the  cross  of  Christ  should  be 
made  of  none  effect."  (1  Cor.,  i.  17.) 

The  discourse  or  reasoning  of  human  wisdom,  renounced 
by  Saint  Paul,  ought  to  be  renounced  by  every  preacher, 
whose  business  is  to  proclaim  Jesus  Christ ;  for  worldly  wis- 
dom, drawing  from  its  own  depths,  does  not  find  Jesus 
Christ.  To  begin  with  human  wisdom,  to  which  the  cross 
is  foolishness,  is  to  renounce  this  foolishness,  which  never- 
theless is  the  doctrine  of  salvation.  But  reflection,  method, 
in  one  word/ art,  has  nothing  in  common  with  that  human 
wisdom  which  is  here  in  question.  The  most  skilful  of 
preachers,  the  wisest  as  to  art,  may  abound  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  foolishness  of  God,  while  the  greatest  stranger  to  this 
divine  foolishness  may  be  absolutely  wanting  in  art. 


INTRODUCTION.  41 

"  Our  religion,"  says  Pascal,  "  is  foolish,  when  regard  is 
had  to  its  effective  cause ;  and  wise,  when  we  regard  the 
wisdom  which  is  shown  in  the  presentation  of  it  to  men."* 
It  may  then  be  wise  as  to  the  part  which  is  confided  to  us  in 
presenting  it.  It  is  really  foolish  in  no  respect,  except  to 
fools,  of  whom,  it  is  true,  the  number  is  great.  Why 
may  we  not  on  this  account  call  the  least  exercise  of  charity 
foolishness  ;  since  this  also  is  above  or  beyond  reason,  which 
by  all  its  efforts  is  not  competent  to  explain  it  % 

Saint  Paul  who  excepts  against  human  wisdom,  still  does 
not  abjure  art,  and  though  his  rhetoric  may  not  be  proposed 
as  a  model  universally,  in  how  many  respects  is  it  at  all  times 
appropriate "?  Be  it  so  that  thfe  Holy  Spirit  taught  it  to  him  ; 
yet  He  did  teach  it  to  him.  We  who  have  not  the  same 
Mastei',  may  not  neglect  an  art  which  he  taught  to  Saint 
Paul. 

But  another  passage  is  objected  to  us :  "  And  I,"  says 
Saint  Paul  to  the  Corinthians,  "  when  I  came  to  you,  came 
not  with  excellency  of  speech  or  of  wisdom,f  declaring  to 
you  the  testimony  of  God,  for  I  determined  to  know  nothing 
among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified."  (1  Corin- 
thians,  ii.  1,  2.) 

Every  preacher  ought  to  adopt  these  words  of  Paul ;  they 
are  the  Christian  preacher's  motto ;  he  is  to  know  nothing 
but  Jesus  Christ.  The  meaning  is  that  to  him  "  there  is  no 
other  name  given  among  men,  whereby  they  can  be  saved." 
(Acts,  iv.  12.)  This  is  the  meaning  ;  for,  in  any  other  sense, 
Saint  Paul  knew  many  other  things.  |     As  to  eloquence  and 

*  Pascal,  Pensees,  Edition  Faugere,  tome  ii.,  p.  354. 
"  f  French  Version. — "  Avec  des  discours  eloquents  ou  avec  une 
sagesse  humaine." 

X  On  the  idioms  of  Saint  Paul,  see  Chrysostom  De  Sacerdotio. 
Cap.  vi. 


42  INTRODUCTION. 

philosophy  he  did  not  pride  himself  on  brilliancy  here  ;  but 
he  used  his  abilities  to  the  uttermost  to  be  clear,  persuasive, 
convincing.  We  find  in  him  every  essential  of  the  orator. 
If  he  is  sometimes  unpolished  while  yet  powerful,  shall  we 
hence  infer  that  he  is  powerful  because  he  is  unpolished  1  Is 
it  not  enough  to  say  that?  trhatever  there  is  of  want  of  polish 
in  him,  is,  as  far  as  it  extends,  an  addition  to  his  power  ?  Be 
as  unpolished  as  he  was,  not  however  of  premeditated  design, 
(for  nothing  were  more  absurd  than  premeditation  here,)  be 
as  unpolished  as  he  was,  but  press  argument  as  he  did,  and 
We  shall  be  content.  But  if  to  imitate,  or  rather  to  parody 
him,  you  make  yourself  a  barbarian,  you  need  do  nothing 
more  to  show  that  there  is  no  necessary  comiection  between 
barbarism  and  power.  The  matter  is  to  be  powerful ;  attain  to 
this  in  whatever  way  you  please.  If  mere  instinct  makes  you 
eloquent,  (I  mean  an  eloquence  coherent,  sustained,  instruc- 
tive,) we  will  excuse  you  from  art ;  we  do  not  pursue  the 
longer  road  for  the  sake  of  the  length  ;  we  shall  be  content  if 
you  reach  the  end  of  the  road  ;  but  will  you  reach  it  ?  That 
is  a  question,  or  rather  it  is  not  one.  Will  you  do  as  well, 
working  at  hazard  with  scattered  forces,  as  in  concentrating 
them  ?  Will  the  fire  be  as  warm  if  you  have  taken  no  care 
to  collect  into  the  brazier  the  scattered  coals  which,  apart 
from  each  other,  are  extinguished  and  dark?  Will  you  do 
as  well  without  meditation  as  with  it,  without  purpose  as 
with  it,  without  combination  as  with  it?  Now,  all  this  is 
art,  and  art  is  nothing  else.* 

*  See  Fenelon,  Dialogues  sur  V Eloquence.  Dialogue  iii.  "We  here 
reproduce  from  a  preceding  manuscript,  the  first  form  which  M. 
Vinet  gave  to  his  reply  to  the  objection  drawn  from  1  Corin- 
thians, ii.  1,  2. 

*'  To  know  Jesus  Christ  crucified,  is  indeed  the  knowledge  of  the 
preacher,  and  truly  as  regards  religion,  his  only  knowledge.  As  re- 
gards religion  we  say ;  for,  in  any  other  view,  Paul  was  not  igno- 


INTEODUCTION.  43 

Separated  from  art,  that  is  to  say,  separated  from  itself,  in 
a  measure,  truth  may  produce  great  effects ;  words  proceed- 
ing from  the  heart,  may  occasionally  avail  more  than  the 
best-prepared  sermon.  But  if  we  take  the  great  majority  of 
cases,  if  we  take  preaching  as  a  whole,  and  its  essential  char- 
acteristic, which  is  instruction,  we  shall  find  that  it  cannot 
make  progress  by  either  impulse  or  inspiration^  and  that  it 
demands  the  aid  of  art. 

There  is,  on  this  subject,  a  great  and  dangerous  mistake. 
Art  is  denied  for  the  sake  of  religion  ;  the  preacher,  it  is  sup- 
posed, is  to  be  remanded  to  religion ;  but  what  is  the  real 
fact  %  In  remanding  him  to  his  first  impression,  he  is  sent  back 
to  nature !  For  who  assures  him  that  his  first  impressions 
will  be  the  most  religious,  or  that  they  will  even  be  relig- 
ious ?   I  am  bold  to  say,  that  Christian  analogy  condemns  this 

rant,  does  not  care  to  appear  so ;  he  makes  an  abundant  use  of 
his  knowledge.  The  Apostle  carefully  explains  himself  on  this 
point,  in  the  following  verses,  where  he  opposes  that  mystery  which 
God  only  could  reveal,  to  the  imaginations  of  human  wisdom,  which 
cannot  attain  to  the  secret  of  God.  Thus,  as  to  knowledge  :  in  regard 
to  eloquence,  he  denies  to  it  as  eloquence,  the  power  of  creating  faith 
(verse  6).  The  great  work  of  conversion  can  have  its  ground  and  its 
reason  only  in  the  nature  of  the  fact  which  the  Apostle  announces, 
Jesus  Christ  crucified.  And  to  gain  reception  for  this  truth  belongs 
only  to  the  Divine  Power,  (Ibid.)  But  as  this  fact  is  suited  to  in- 
spire eloquence,  why  should  not  the  preacher  endeavor  to  give  back 
to  it  all  he  has  received  from  it  ?  Why  not  strive  to  give  addition- 
al views  of  it,  to  commend  it  to  the  conscience  of  all,  to  appeal  to 
human  nature  in  order  to  produce  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  it  ? 
May  he  do  this  without  meditation  ?  May  he  attain  to  the  utmost 
force  of  argument  without  combination.  May  he  find  combinations 
without  having  observed  human  nature,  and  discovered  the  most  di- 
rect and  sure  way  to  the  centre  of  the  soul  ?  If  you  deny  the  name 
of  art  to  all  this,  you  are  masters  of  it,  and  we  shall  not  dispute 
about  a  thing  so  small.  Adopt  the  means,  and  give  them  what  name 
you  please." — Editoks. 


44  INTEODUCTION. 

method  ;  for  religion  itself  is  a  work  of  art,  and  in  its  highest 
sphere  it  consecrates  the  prerogatives  and  the  dignity  of  art ; 
religion  does  not  confine  itself  to  our  first  emotion,  to  our 
first  glance;  it  continually  appeals  to  thought,  to  reflection;  it 
is  not  content  with  instinct.  In  despising  art  then,  we  act  in 
the  spirit  and  under  the  influence  of  nature  rather  than  in  the 
spirit  and  under  the  influence  of  religion. 
-  A  generous  enthusiasm  may  have  given  circulation  to  the 
maxims  we  oppose;  but  indolence  has  intercepted  them; 
this  it  is  which  makes  the  most  use  of  them.  Who  will 
dare  deny  it  %  Zeal  also,  I  am  very  willing  to  admit,  takes 
advantage  of,  and  applies  them.  Is  it  right  in  this  1  Has  it 
need  of  these  maxims  ?  We  shall  have  occasion  to  examine 
this  question.* 

We  now  turn  to  those  who  are  disposed  to  expect  too 
much  from  Homiletics ;  and  first  to  those  who  expect  too 
much  from  the  teaching  of  Homiletics.  For  even  if  Homilet- 
ics, or  the  theory  of  ecclesiastical  eloquence,  were  able  to 
create  eloquence,  it  would  not  follow  that  a  Homiletical 
course  though  the  best  that  could  be  heard  and  though  lis- 
tened to  in  the  best  manner,  might  of  itself  alone  make  a 
preacher  eloquent. 

A  course,  or  a  regular  indoctrination  in  Homiletics,  is  ne- 
cessary, since  it  gathers  and  arranges  under  the  eyes  of  the 
student  a  quantity  of  ideas  and  facts,  which,  in  general,  the 
student  cannot  gather.  This  course  will  give  an  idea  of  the 
subject  matter  of  the  art,  and  the  art  itself,  in  its  extent, 
which  it  is  necessary  to  have  in  advance,  since  practice,  from 
which  we  afterwards  learn  the  necessity  of  principles,  does 
not  give  a  full  notion,  and  cannot  be  a  substitute  for  the 
study  of  them.  A  very  rare  organization,  and  circumstances 
no  less  rare,  are  necessary,  in  order  to  our  learning  art  well 
*  Bee  part  iii.,  chap  i.,  of  Elocution  in  general. 


INTKODUCTION.  45 

from  practice  alone.  When  facts  react  much  upon  ideas,  the 
ideas  throw  their  light  in  advance  of  the  facts.  Now,  these 
ideas,  in  the  present  case,  are  Homiletics. 

But  the  professor  is  not  one  of  those  roads  which  move 
and  bear  us  on  to  the  place  whither  we  are  to  go.*  He 
is  not  a  river,  he  is  only  a  road. 

Any  course  whatever,  but  especially  a  course  of  the  latter 
kind,  is  truly  given  only  when  it  has  been  received  ;  and  to 
receive  it  is  to  be  more  than  passive,  it  is  an  act  of  the 
will :  to  learn  is  to  take.f 

Strictly,  what  does  the  professor  give  1  Not  science,  but 
directions  to  us  for  making  ourselves  scientific.  You  do  not 
here  learn  ;  you  here  only  learn  to  learn. 

Eemark,  moreover,  that  if  in  one  sense  art  is  one,  it  is  not 
so  in  all  senses  ;  it  multiplies  itself  in  individuals,  it  individ- 
ualizes itself  in  each.  The  question  which  will  one  day  pre- 
sent itself  before  you,  will  be,  not  what  ought  to  be  done, 
but,  what  ought  I  to  do  1  In  this  preparatory  period,  orator- 
ical discourse  may  appear  to  you  as  an  end  ;  but  in  ministe- 
rial activity,  it  will  be  only  as  a  means  of  attaining  an  actual 
end,  on  some  occasion  which  will  resemble  exactly  no  other. 
The  professor  responds  to  the  question,  what  ought  to  be 
done  1  He  does  not  respond  to  the  question,  what  ought  I 
to  do  1  He  is  obliged  to  abstract  his  individuality  from  him- 
self;  he  teaches  every  one's  art,  not  his  own. 

The  professor  whom  you  hear,  the  rhetorician  you  read, 
cannot  give  you  a  rhetoric  of  your  own ;  each  one  has  always 
to  do  this  for  himself. 

But  if  we  must  not  rest  too  exclusively  on  the  course  we 
attend  upon,  no  more  must  we  put  too  much  confidence  in 

*  Pascal,  Fensees,  Partie  i.,  Art.  x.,  §  xxxviii.  "  Les  rivieres  sont 
les  chemins  qui  marchent,  et  qui  portent  ou  Ton  veut  aller."  I.  206, 
Ixxxvi. — Tr. 

*  Apprendre  c^est  prendre. 


46  INTKODUCTION. 

Homiletics  themselves,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  abstract  ideas 
of  art.  I  call  them  abstract,  because  they  are  isolated  from 
the  subject,  the  circumstance,  and  the  concrete  ideas  of  the 
very  substance  itself  of  the  discourse. 

I  might  oppose  here  talent  to  art ;  to  art  which  is  talent 
acquired  or  developed,  talent  which  is  art,  native,  sponta- 
•  neous,  intuitive ;  art  in  germ ;  and  say,  that  no  theory  can 
either  give  or  be  a  substitute  for  talent.  But  this  concerns 
me  less.  I  think  it  more  important  to  oppose  the  theory  or 
the  abstract  ideas  of  art,  to  the  substance  itself  of  that  elo- 
quence which  art  would  control.  Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that 
eloquence  primarily  is  in  things ;  in  one  sense,  it  is  wholly 
in  things,  from  which  we  only  detach  it.  Eloquence  has  no 
existence  by  itself,  independently  of  things;  after  putting 
aside  the  truth,  the  beauty  of  the  objects,  and  the  sentiments 
which  correspond  to  them  in  the  orator's  soul,  what,  I  ask, 
remains,  except  the  logic  and  the  psychology,  of  which  elo- 
quence is  but  a  more  or  less  happy  use  ?  The  essential  elo- 
quence is  neither  psychology  nor  logic  ;  it  is  the  truth,  it  is 
the  soul. 

This  is  a  chief  point.  Eloquence  is  substantial ;  it  is  on 
that  account  an  affair  of  reality,  for  though  an  abstraction,  is 
of  no  time  or  place,  substance  belongs  to  time  and  space : 
it  is  a  reality.  Hence,  as  things  are  of  the  first  importance, 
the  season  and  the  place  are  to  be  reckoned  something ;  the 
orator  has  something  to  learn  from  them.  He  would  be  ill 
prepared  if  he  should  take  art  for  anything  terminating  in 
itself,  absolute  and  independent  of  circumstances,  as  a  form 
prescribed  once  for  all,  or  an  unchangeable  programme  ;  if  he 
should  not  remind  himself  that  each  time  and  for  each  one 
the  task  is  to  be  renewed,  and  that  as  that  there  is  a  general 
art  for  making  discourse  in  general,  (discourse  which  has  no 
existence,)  there  is  an  art  for  making  the  discourse  of  to- 
day, an  art  for  making  that  of  to-morrow.     The  homiletics 


INTRODUCTION.  47 

of  the  closet  should  leave  a  place  for  those  of  the  temple  and 
of  the  parish. 

Eloquence  has  the  character  of  business.  Now  business 
is  not  learnt  by  abstraction ;  commerce  only  understands 
commerce ;  politics  are  learnt  in  the  management  of  State 
affairs,  and  life  in  living. 

Rules  are  the  summary,  the  generalization  of  particular 
experiences.  A  rule  does  not  qualify  us  fully  for  acting ;  it 
has  no  active  force ;  it  inspires  not ;  it  communicates  no- 
thing; it  prompts  to  action.  Rules,  however,  are  not  on 
this  account,  of  small  use ;  they  aid  our  views,  they  keep 
us  from  false  views ;  they  shorten  the  time  and  the  uncer- 
tainty of  walking  in  the  dark.  They  are,  if  you  please, 
anticipated  experience  formed  from  the  experience  of  others, 
and  from  certain  a  priori  reasonings.  We  live  by  their  help, 
as  the  child  lives  on  his  father's  goods,  until  we  are  able 
to  gain  our  living,  and  they  put  us  in  a  condition  for  gaining 
it ;  that  is  to  say,  rules  teach  us  to  make  rules  for  ourselves. 

There  is  indeed  reaction ;  for,  as  rules  (generalizations, 
abstract  ideas)  aid  our  views  of  facts,  these  latter,  in  their 
turn,  give  us  the  true  understanding  of  rules,  and  measure 
their  extent. 

It  may  be  dangerous  to  give  too  absolute  a  value  to  rules, 
and  to  leave  the  mind  in  captivity  to  them ;  we  must,  at 
least,  always  refer  them  to  the  more  general  principles  from  ,S.' 
which  they  emanate ;  we  must  always  keep  open  and  free  the 
communication  between  principles  and  rules,  as  also  between 
rules  and  facts.  Principles,  facts,  these  are  our  light ;  rules 
are  a  tie  between  prmciples  and  facts,  but  it  is  necessary  that 
the  tie  be  a  living  one.  A  rule  whose  two  extremities  are 
not  constantly  in  contact  with  principles  and  facts,  is  an 
empty  formula.* 

*  See  Reinhard's  Qestcendnisse,  p.  51,  and  p.  45  of  the  transla- 
tion published  in  1816,  by  M.  John  Monard,  under  the  title:  Lettres 


48  INTEODUCTION. 

Asvfor  models,  in  what  spirit  must  we  study  them  ?*  It 
is  with  beauty  as  with  virtue,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other 
are  to  be  copied ;  they  impress  themselves,  the  one  on  the 
taste,  the  other  on  the  conscience ;  they  have  only  to  show 
themselves;  by  contemplation  of  their  forms  we  become 
like  them.f  This  excludes  neither  reflection  nor  analysis; 
looking  does  not  hinder  us  from  seeing.  But  beauty  does 
not  transport  itself  ready-made;  and  we  less  resemble 
models  the  more  we  wish  to  resemble  them.  It  is  simply  or 
chiefly  a  contagion,  to  which  we  must  expose  ourselves. 
Admiration  is  fruitful. 

And  what  are  models  ?  Not  only  sermons,  but  all  oratorical 
discourses  ;  not  all  these  only,  but  eloquence  wherever  it  is 
to  be  found ;  eloquence,  not  oratory ;  the  eloquence  of  nar- 
ration as  well  as  that  of  reasoning ;  eloquence  of  kinds  the 
most  diverse,  that  we  may  have  the  most  comprehensive,  the 
most  pure,  the  least  conventional  idea  of  it ;  not  only  elo- 
quence prepared  to  hand,  but  that  which  makes  itself  elo- 
quence. Ready-made  eloquence  may  put  your  own  out  of 
doors. 

de  F.  V.  Reinhard  sur  ses  etudes  et  la  carriere  de  predicateur.  Paris, 
1816. 

*  Barante,  Melanges,  tome  ii.,  p.  8^4,  and  Herder's  Briefe,  etc.^ 
Letter  XLI. 

f  "We  shall  be  like  him,  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he  is."  (1  John, 
iii.,  2.) 


PARI 

I  N  Y  E  N  T  I< 


The  division  of  a  course  upon  the  art  of  Oratory,  has 
always  been,  as  it  ever  must  be,  Invention^  Disposition^  Elo- 
cution. 

Invention,  strictly  speaking,  expands  itself  over  the  whole 
field  of  Rhetoric.  We  invent  our  plan,  we  invent  our  lan- 
guage. The  same  faculty  is  applied  to  everything  ;  it  is  the 
whole  talent,  it  is  the  whole  art. 

But  if  we  consider  here,  not  the  faculty,  the  exercise  of 
which  is  unlimited,  but  the  object,  which  is  special,  we  shall 
find  a  real  difference  and  distinction  between  these  three 
things  ;  the  matter  or  ground,  (which  is  to  be  invented,)  the 
order,  (which  is  to  be  invented,)  and  the  style,  (which  is  to 
be  invented,)  a  division  which  corresponds  to  the  ancient 
one,  and  which,  perhaps,  we  may  use  to  advantage.* 

While,  however,  we  retain  the  terms,  we  premise  that  by 
the  word  invention,  we  understand  only  the  invention  of  the 
ideas,  or  the  matter,  of  which  the  disposition  and  expression 
are  afterwards  to  be  invented. 

Invention  here,  then,  is  taken  in  the  narrower  sense,  (the 
invention  of  the  matter  of  the  discourse,)  for,  in  the  abso- 
lute sense,  it  presents  itself  at  every  point  in  the  art.  It 
is  true,  nevertheless,  that  the  invention  of  the  principal  ideas 
of  the  discourse  is  invention  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term. 
*  Pascal,  Pensee,  Edition  Faugere,  tome  i.,  p.  254,  §  xxiv. 
3 


50  KNOWLEDGE. 

It  is  difficult  to  explain  invention,  taken  as  an  active 
spring,  as  an  energy  of  the  mind.  At  whatever  point  we 
place  it  in  the  art,  invention,  in  its  principle,  is  a  mystery. 
Talent  may  explain  its  methods,  not  itself.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  germ  is  human,  the  germ  is  divine.  To  say  that 
invention  is  not  something  sui  generis,  were  to  say  that  im- 
agination is  not  a  distinct  faculty,  a  primitive  force.  And 
if  nothing  but  mere  method  were  here  to  be  recognized,  yet 
must  it  be  admitted  that  this  method  is,  in  certain  minds,  in- 
nate, that  it  is  a  talent.  This  instinctive,  enchantress-like 
method  is,  perhaps,  talent  itself  Invention  is  a  kind  of 
divining-rod.*  It  is  impossible  to  give  it  to  ourselves, 
absolutely  ;  it  is  even  impossible  when  one  has  one  kind  of 
invention  to  give  himself  another  kind.  We  may  be  invent- 
ive in  philosophy  without  having  the  least  measure  of  his- 
torical invention.  Invention,  however,  is  an  element  in  every 
mind  ;  but  minds  in  this  respect  are  very  unequal  and  very 
different.  Where  there  is  no  invention,  art  loses  its  peroga- 
tives ;  but  it  never  loses  them,  for  there  is  always  some 
measure  of  it.  No  one  can  do  everything,  but  no  one  does 
all  he  can  do.  To  know  our  wealth  we  must  make  it 
available.  An  inventive  mind  may  become  more  so  by  the 
use  of  certain  means  which  are  not  talent  ;  and  a  mind  in 
which  invention  is  feeble,  but  not  entirely  wanting,  may,  by 
the  use  of  the  same  means,  develop  this  power  in  itself. 
The  means  of  turning  to  account  and  developing  what  we 
have  of  invention,  are  the  followmg : 

1.  Knowledge.  The  more  we  know  the  greater  is  our  ad- 
vantage for  inventing  ;  an  original  mind  does  not  lose,  it 

*  "  The  generality  of  writers  pass  and  repass  over  mines  of  gold, 
a  thousand  times,  without  suspecting  their  existence.  Genius  alone 
has  the  instinct  which  gives  notice  of  the  riches  of  the  mine,  as  it 
alone  has  the  power  of  penetrating  into  its  bowels  and  drawing 
thence  its  treasures." — Marmontel. 


MEDITATION.  51 

gains  in  originality  by  knowledge.*  The  mutual  inter- 
course of  mind  with  mind,  of  thought  with  thought,  is  not 
unfriendly  to  individuality  ;  in  this  sphere,  also,  it  is  not 
good  for  man  to  be  alone.  Every  kind  of  knowledge  does 
not  promote  originality,  but  an  original  mind  has  an  original 
erudition ;  knowledge,  an  element  as  it  seems  wholly  object- 
ive, becomes  in  it  a  subjective  element.  However  this  may 
be,  it  is  given  to  no  man  to  draw  something  from  nothing  ; 
the  most  exalted  imagination  must  have  a  point  of  depart- 
ure or  a  point  of  rest.  Talent  is  a  lever,  but  a  lever  only. 
"  The  human  mind  can  create  nothing,  it  can  produce  only 
after  it  has  been  made  fertile  by  experience,  (its  own  or 
another's,)  or  by  meditation.  Its  knowledge  is  the  germ  of 
its  productions." 

2.  The  second  means  is  Meditation^  a  species  of  incubation 
which  warms  and  fructifies  the  germ.  It  is  the  concentration  of 
the  thought,  nay  even  of  the  life,  upon  a  point  with  which  we 
seek  to  identify  ourselves.  Meditation  is  aided  by  analysis, 
but  meditation  is  not  analysis.  If  we  are  not  mistaken  as  to 
the  etymology  of  the  word,  meditation  introduces  us  into 
the  midst  of  the  object.  We  seek  to  obtain  by  means  of  it, 
not  a  simple  idea  or  a  formula,  but  a  direct  perception. 
There  is  analysis,  logic  in  it  also,  but  it  is  rather  that  of  the 
object  than  of  the  subject,  rather  that  of  sentiment  than  of 
thought,  it  is  a  continued  and  deep  impression  of  the  thing, 
a  sort  of  consubstantiation.  It  implies  a  force,  a  peculiar 
aptitude ;  but  as  will  has  much  to  do  here,  we  put  meditation 
among  the  means  of  invention ;  we  do  not  make  it  the  princi- 
ple of  invention.  Meditation  is  to  talent  what  conscience  is 
to  the  moral  sense. 

*  "He  (Petrarch)  proved  that  knowledge  contributes  much  to 
invention,  and  his  genius  was  the  more  original,  as  like  eternal 
forces,  it  could  be  always  present. — Madame  de  Stael,  Corinne^  Sec. 
ii.,  Chap.  iii. 


52  ANALYSIS — EXERCISE. 

3.  Analysis,  a  different  thing  from  meditation,  strives  to 
ascend  to  the  remote  idea  of  the  object,  as  to  a  summit 
where  we  may  command  all  the  declivities,  and  where  we 
may  see,  in  proportion  to  our  elevation,  a  more  extended  ho- 
rizon. It  incessantly  climbs  toward  the  most  simple  and 
lofty  principle,  always  meeting  as  it  mounts,  elements  less 
contingent,  less  accidental.  When  guided  by  sound  logic 
and  profound  metaphysics,  it  arrives  at  surprising  results, 
surprising,  I  mean,  to  itself;  it  makes  new  and  striking  dis- 
coveries. We  must  not  confound  with  this  process,  the 
methods  of  a  trivial  logic  which  is  always  sure  to  produce 
something,  always  sure  to  fill  a  certain  space,  but  which  never 
moves  anything  beyond  the  uppermost  layer  of  the  soil. 

4.  Exercise.  The  more  we  exact  of  the  soil,  the  more  it 
produces.  It  does  not  exhaust  itself.  Nihil  feracius  inge- 
niis ;  we  shall  get  the  more  from  it  the  more  it  has  given 
us.  We  may  not  here  apply  the  passage,  "  Your  strength  is 
to  sit  still,"  (Isaiah,  xxx.  7,)  for  sitting  still  will  enfeeble  and 
kill  us.     It  is  rust  and  not  use  that  tarnishes  the  lustre  of  steel. 

Under  the  head  of  invention,  the  rhetoricians,  we  may  ob- 
serve, neither  treat  of  the  talent  of  invention  nor  of  the 
means  of  developing  it.  They  would  rather  prescribe  cer- 
tain laws  to  it ;  they  attempt  to  regulate  it.  In  the  ancient 
systems  of  rhetoric,  invention  is  less  the  faculty  of  finding, 
than  the  art  of  choosing  among  things  found.  "  The  orator 
must  use  discernment.  He  must  not  only  find  ideas  to  ex- 
press, he  must  examine  them.  Nothing  is  more  prolific  than 
the  mind,  especially  when  it  has  been  cultivated  by  study ; 
but  as  a  rich,  productive  soil,  not  only  produces  wheat,  but 
all  kinds  of  weeds  that  injure  the  good  seed,  the  mind,  in  like 
manner,  sometimes  produces  frivolous  thoughts,  or  thoughts 
foreign  to  the  object  it  has  in  view,  and  of  no  utility,  and  the 
orator  must  carefully   select  the  ideas  which  are  to  have  a 

place  in  his  work.*" 

*  Cicero,  Orator. 


EXERCISE.  53 

It  should  be  observed  that  the  ancient  orators,  having  in 
view  only  judicial  and  deliberative  eloquence,  have  nothing 
to  say  on  invention  of  the  subject,  which  was  always  pre- 
scribed to  the  orator.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  eloquence  of 
the  pulpit.  The  preacher,  it  is  true,  might  be  compelled 
to  choose  a  text,  but  he  cannot  be  forbidden  to  choose 
his  subject  first,  and  his  text  for  his  subject ;  and  then,  as  to 
the  text  itself,  after  it  has  been  chosen,  he  has  often  to  find 
or  create  a  subject  for  it.  Besides,  we  do  not  admit  that  the 
use  of  a  text  is  essential  to  pulpit  eloquence.  We  may  then 
say,  that  the  preacher  is  often  required  to  choose  his  subject. 
And  when  we  say  choose,  we  do  not  mean  take  it  ready  pre- 
pared from  the  midst  of  a  table  of  contents,  all  arranged  in 
order,  of  a  list  of  heads  with  their  subdivisions.  The  num- 
ber of  subjects  is  incalculable ;  each  following  the  relation, 
the  combination  which  has  been  preconceived,  multiplies  it- 
self; it  is  as  the  five  loaves  and  two  fishes  of  the  gospel.  No 
one  in  this  matter  is  obliged  to  walk  in  the  steps  of  his  pre- 
decessors. Without  seeking  novelty,  we  may  be  new.  A 
simple  impression  received  from  our  text,  or  a  view  furnished 
by  life,  may  contribute  to  novelty.  But  the  most  reliable 
means  of  invention,  as  to  the  subject  of  discourse,  is  a  truly 
philosophical  culture.  Under  this  conviction,  we  cannot  too 
earnestly  recommend  to  candidates  for  the  pulpit,  the  study 
of  philosophy,  which  will  be  constantly  giving  them  new 
aspects  of  the  same  truth. 

But  this,  strictly  speaking,  is  not  in  the  sphere  of  Homi- 
letics;  it  belongs  to  a  previous  preparation.  We  restrict 
ourselves  to  Cicero's  point  of  view ;  under  the  name  of  in- 
vention, we  treat  of  the  choice  of  materials,  and  with  this 
limitation,  we  shall  speak  first  of  the  Subject^  and  then  of  the 
Substance  of  Pulpit  Discourse. 


SECTION  FIEST. 

SUBJECT   OF    PULPIT   DISCOURSE. 

The  subject  of  judicial  and  of  political  discourse  is  a  ques- 
tion of  fact,  justice,  or  experience,  arising  out  of  an  actual 
and  contingent  fact.  Discourse  of  these  kinds,  treats  its  sub- 
ject, whether  genus  or  species,  only  in  an  indirect  or  occa- 
sional way,  having  an  ulterior  end  ;  pulpit  oratory  abides  in 
the  category  of  genus  or  species.  In  this  eloquence,  an  indi- 
vidual and  even  an  actual  question  is  not  wanting  ;  but  it  re- 
mains concealed.  The  process  as  to  this,  is  conducted  in  the 
dark,  in  the  secresy  of  every  man's  conscience.  What  ap- 
pears is  the  generic  and  the  permanent. 

Moreover,  it  is  always  a  question,  whatever  may  be  its 
nature,  which  is  to  be  subject  to  the  laws  of  discourse.  We 
here  advance  the  first  rule  or  the  first  condition  of  pulpit  dis- 
course :   ITS  SUBJECT  IS  ONE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

UNITY    OF    THE    SUBJECT. 


The  human  mind  inherently  demands  unity.  Apart  from 
unity,  we  can  recognize  neither  truth,  goodness,  nor  happi- 
ness. 

In  morality,  we  want  a  principle  to  move  and  direct  us  ; 
in  life,  a  purpose ;  in  institutions,  harmony ;  in  poetry,  an 
idea ;  in  history,  a  point  of  view ;  in  the  universe,  one  final 
cause  of  all  effects. 


UNITY   OF  THE   SUBJECT.  65 

We  are  not  pursuing  identity  under  the  name  of  unity. 
Where  there  is  identity,  the  very  idea  of  unity  disappears ; 
plurality  is  necessary  to  give  unity  a  place ;  systems  of  iden- 
tity spring  from  our  impatience  to  find  unity,  and  our  repug- 
nance to  regard  things  as  disconnected. 

Unity  is  essential  to  every  work  of  art,  art  itself  having  as 
its  chief  aim  to  make  one  whole  by  combining  scattered  ele- 
ments.* In  defining  art,  the  assemblage  of  the  means  for 
making  a  thing,  we  return  to  the  same  idea ;  for  making  is 
uniting,  as  unmaking  is  separating. 

Every  work  of  art  is  a  work  of  subordination  and  of  co- 
ordination. The  first  includes  the  second.  All  elements 
subordinated  to  one  and  the  same  principle,  are  thereby  co- 
ordinated with  one  another. 

Unity  in  works  of  art,  requires  not  only  the  exclusion  from 
one  and  the  same  whole,  one  assemblage,  elements  which  are 
incompatible  with  one  another ;  but  the  bringing  all  the 
parts  into  relation  to  one  and  the  same  centre,  one  and  the 
same  end.  There  are  two  degrees  in  it.  We  may  call  the 
first  negative  unity,  and  the  second  positive  unity. 

Oratorical  discourse  demands  unity  yet  more  impera- 
tively. 

Not  being  read,  but  heard,  it  would  very  quickly  weary 
our  attention,  if  it  were  required  to  transfer  itself  successive- 
ly from  one  side  to  another.     - 

Its  duration  being  short,  compared  with  that  of  other  pro- 
ductions, it  is  less  at  liberty  to  entertain  the  hearer  with  a 
variety  of  subjects. 

Having  to  act  upon  the  will,  it  gains  on  this  account  by 
concentrating  itself  on  a  single  thought.  It  is  when  it  does 
this,  as  different  from  discourse,  which,  however  full,  is  inco- 

*  Ars  formed  artus.  "Apco,  to  adapt ;  apa,  then,  consequently  ;  dpi, 
a  particle  of  corroboration  ;  "A.p7]S,  the  God  of  power ;  dper/j,  virtue ; 
doTtog,  accomplished.     Harmony  has  the  same  etymology 


56  UNITY  OF  THE  SUBJECT. 

herent,  without  definite  aim,  or  confused,  as  an  army  is  from 
a  rabble.  The  strongest  thoughts,  which  are  not  intercon- 
nected, injure  one  another,  and  the  more  in  proportion  to 
their  strength.  Only  very  powerful  minds  can  obtain  profit 
from  that  which  is  without  unity,  or  from  that  which  is  in- 
consistent with  itself  Attacked  by  a  crowd  of  mutually 
self-neutralizing  impressions,  we  are  made  captive  by  none, 
and  are  fixed  to  nothing. 

Mark,  when  you  have  opportunity,  the  effect  of  such  dis- 
course on  its  seriously-minded  hearers,  taking  them  as  you 
find  them.  Each  hearer  of  this  class,  unconsciously  to  him- 
self, will  endeavor  to  give  unity  to  a  discourse  to  w^hich  the 
preacher  has  not  given  it ;  or  will  attach  himself  to  one  of 
the  preacher's  ideas,  and  adhere  to  that ;  or  will  perhaps 
force  all  these  ideas  to  take  the  direction  which  pleases  his 
own  thought. 

The  very  solemnity  of  preaching  requires  unity.  The  so- 
lemnity would  be  less  if  the  discourse,  instead  of  being  a 
procession,  were  a  promenade. 

Evidently  all  this  applies  without  abatement  to  the  dis- 
course of  the  pulpit,  and  we  were  right  in  saying  that  the 
first  requisite  in  the  subject  of  this  discourse  is  that  it  be  one ; 
or,  which  comes  to  the  same,  that  the  first  requisite  in  this 
discourse  is  to  have  one  subject ;  for,  when  there  are  many 
subjects,  there  is  none.  If  you  tell  a  man  that  you  have  been 
hearing  a  discourse,  his  first  question  is,  what  was  its  sub- 
ject ?     He  never  asks  you  what  were  its  subjects '? 

Unity  of  subject,  in  order  to  be  real  and  to  be  felt,  involves, 
unquestionably,  a  convergence  or  a  gravitation  of  all  the 
parts,  even  the  minutest,  towards  the  centre.  But  this  has 
regard  to  execution,  of  which  we  are  to  speak  hereafter. 
Here  we  consider  only  the  choice  of  the  subject. 

To  obtain  a  clear  idea  of  oratorical  unity  let  us  distinguish 
it  from  purely  historic,  and  purely  didactic  unity. 


UNITY  OF  THE  SUBJECT.  67 

It  is  different  from  historic  unity  in  this,  that  it  embraces 
at  once  the  subject  and  the  attribute,  that  is  to  say,  both 
terms  of  the  proposition,*  while  history  places  unity  in  the 
subject  only.     For  example — 


The  Greeks 


'  were  united, 
conquered  ; 
were  divided, 
were  overcome. 


It  is  true,  that  in  this  example  even,  we  see  how  many  at- 
tributes may  be  reduced  to  but  one;  The  Greeks  were 
stronger  in  proportion  as  they  were  united.  But  yet  this  at- 
tribute is  but  one  of  those  of  which  Grecian  history  is  com- 
posed, the  unity  of  which,  mider  the  purely  historic  point  of 
view,  resides  wholly  in  the  subject,  or  material  of  history. 
Between  the  historic  and  didactic  elements  there  is  the  dif- 
ference which  exists  between  the  contingent  and  the  necessa- 
ry, the  iudividual  and  the  general,  fact  and  law  which  is  a 
great  primitive  and  unchangable  fact.  That  "union  is 
strength,"  is  a  general  truth  which  results  from  many  facts 
like  that  which  has  been  above  indicated  respecting  the 
Greeks.  And  yet  this  maxim  may  have  two  meanings,  one 
a  priori,  the  other  a  posteriori. 

Oratorical  unity  is  different  from  didactic  in  this,  that  all 
the  elements  it  combines  have  for  their  last  term  a  practical 
application  or  conclusion.  The  truth  or  idea  which  has  been 
obtained  is  not  left  to  expatiate  and  wander  in  the  mind ; 
out  of  all  the  conduits  into  which  it  flows,  imagination,  rea- 
son, sentiment,  it  is  gathered  and  confined  in  one  conduit  into 
which  all  the  others  issue,  that  of  the  will ;  and  thus  it  receives 
a  course  towards  action,  more  or  less  rapid. f 

*  I  say  this  because  all  discourse,  though  it  were  a  book,  may  be 
reduced  to  one  proposition. 

f  We  may  indeed  assemble  tbe  hearers  in  a  public  place,  in  order 
3* 


58  UNITY  OF  THE  SUBJECT. 

In  a  word,  the  subject  of  oratorical  discourse  is  a  simple 
imperative  proposition:  "Do  this,"  "Do  not  that."  It  is 
absolutely  so  at  the  bar  or  in  the  senate :  "  Release  this 
prisoner,"    "  Vote  this  law." 

The  pulpit  orator  is  in  a  position  somewhat  different. 
Strictly  oratorical  unity  resides  in  his  preaching,  rather  as 
a  whole  than  in  each  one  of  his  discourses.  The  reason  is, 
that  he  is  not  only  an  orator,  like  the  lawyer  or  the  politi- 
cian, he  is  also  and  essentially  a  teacher,  an  instructor.  But  let 
us  remark  first,  that  there  is  in  religion  no  didactic  subject 
which  has  not  practical  bearings  direct  or  indirect  ;  nothing 
is  level,  all  is  inclined  ;  nothing  still  water,  all  is  a  river  or 
a  torrent.  Next,  let  us  not  forget  that  we  are  to  treat 
these  subjects  as  the  best  preachers  do,  in  an  oratorical  spirit, 
and  that  charity  gives  this  spirit ; — ^Truth  commands  ;  fact 
becomes  law. 

I  conclude  with  Schott,  "  Although  it  enters  into  the  es- 
sential notion  of  oratorical  discourse  to  make  the  deter- 
mination of  the  will  its  supreme  and  ultimate  end,  we 
do  not  refuse  the  name  of  oratorical  discourse  to  a  compo- 
sition in  which  this  practical  direction,  without  appearing  in 
the  announcement  of  the  principal  proposition,  reveals  itself 
clearly  and  unequivocally  in  the  spirit  and  substance  of  the 
entire  performance.  .  .  .  But  a  theme  which  has  no  rela- 
tion to  a  subject  practically  important,  or  which  cannot  be 
made  so,  without  painful  effort,  is  not  a  proper  basis  for  an 
oratorical  discourse."* 

All  subjects  drawn  from  the  Christian  religion,  are,  as  hav- 
ing this  character,  more  or  less  suitable  for  the  pulpit  ;  still 
I  think,  that  ordinarily  the  preacher  should  not  be  content  to 

to  expound  to  them,  merely,  certain  truths ;  this  is  instruction,  but 
not  an  oratorical  discourse,  although  the  instruction  may  not  be 
without  oratorical  characteristics. 
*  Schott' s  Entwurf  einer  Theorie  der  Beredsamkeit,  p.  31. 


UNITY  OF  THE   SUBJECT.  69 

leave  the  people  to  make  the  inference,  but  should  hin  iself 
do  this,  and,  at  least,  infuse  a  practical  spirit  into  every  part 
of  his  discourse. 

Saurin  has  given  a  highly  and  directly  practical  bearing  to 
many  subjects  of  a  very  speculative  aspect.  Thus,  in  the 
sermon  on  the  Beatific  Vision  of  the  Deity ^'^  "  We  shall  see 
God  as  he  is,  and  we  shall  thus  be  made  like  him :"  The  plan 
of  God  is  to  render  man  like  God ;  it  is  the  plan  of  the  devil 
to  make  man  like  the  devil  ;  into  which  of  these  two  plans 
do  you  propose  to  enter  %  Subjects  of  this  class  may  be 
compared  to  an  arrow  which  though  unarmed  with  a  point, 
pierces  the  object  by  mere  projectile  force.  In  the  sermon 
on  the  Ministry  of  the  Angels,j-  he  demands  of  us  an  imitation 
of  those  blessed  spirits  who  execute  the  divine  commands 
with  the  swiftness  of  the  winds  and  the  activity  of  fire.  In 
that  on  the  Equality  of  Man^l  after  having  established  the 
essential  equality  of  man,  he  remarks  that  he  would  hence 
infer  nothing  in  favor  of  either  anarchy  or  fanaticism  ;  his 
inferences  are  these  :  Moderation  ;  submission  to  providen- 
tial allotments  ;  watchfulness  (to  know  the  duties  of  your 
position)  ;  zeal  and  fervor ;  all  the  mortifications  of  ineq  uality 
are  to  have  an  end. 

On  the  whole,  1  conclude  that  to  have  unity  in  a  sermon, 
it  must  be  reducible  to  a  doctrinal  proposition,  which  is 
readily  transformed,  and  is  in  fact  transformed  into  a  prac- 
tical proposition. 

Assuming  this,  we  shall  now  present  some  of  the  princi- 
pal forms  under  which  this  unity  may  exist. 

We  omit  the  consideratioa  of  practical  or  parenetic  unity, 
because  it  is  to  be  henceforth  understood  that  this  character- 
istic should  appear  in  all  subjects  ;  and  farther,  that  the  pul- 
pit is  essentially  didactic.     Thus,  the  impulsive  character  of 

*  Saurin,  tome  iii.,  p.  95,  Nouvelle  Edition 

f  Ibid.,  tome  vi.,  p,  447.  X  Ibid.,  tome  iii.,  p.  309. 


60  UNITY  OF  THE   SUBJECT. 

pulpit  discourse  is  assumed  in  all  the  examples  we  are  about 
to  consider. 

1.  There  is  unity  in  a  simple  proposition,  whether  doctrinal 
or  practical  ;  I  mean  a  unique  proposition  consisting  of  a 
single  subject  and  a  single  attribute    Examples  : 

"  There  is  no  peace  to  the  wicked."     (Isaiah  Ivii.  24.) 

"  God  is  not  in  all  the  thoughts  of  the  wicked."  (Psalm 
X.  4.) 

"  I  am  with  you  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world." 
(Matthew,  xxviii.  20.) 

"  Bless  those  who  curse  you."  (Matthew,  v.  44  ;  Luke, 
vi.  28.) 

"  Prove  what  is  acceptable  to  the  Lord."     (Ephes,  v.  10.) 

"  To  him  that  knoweth  to  do  good,  and  doeth  it  not,  to 
him  it  is  sin."     (James,  iv.  17.) 

"The  wicked  worketh  a  deceitful  work."     (Prov.  xi.  18.) 

"  That  which  is  highly  esteemed  among  men  is  abomina- 
tion in  the  sight  of  God."     (Luke,  xvi.  15.) 

"The  work  of  righteousness  shall  be  peace,"  (Isaiah^ 
xxxii.  17.) 

"  He  who  is  not  with  me  is  against  me."  (Matthew,  xii. 
30.) 

It  need  not  be  said  that  the  development  of  the  thesis 
or  the  exegesis  of  the  text  which  contains  it,  together  with 
its  proof,  forms  no  duplicity.  It  is  not  against  unity  to  ex- 
plain fully  the  subject  or  attribute,  or  both.  As  well  might 
we  proscribe  definition.  Both  the  conviction  and  the  deter- 
mination of  the  will  are  often  the  result  of  exhibiting  the 
sense  in  detail ;  as  in  1  Timothy,  i.  5 :  "  The  end  of  the 
commandment  is  charity,  out  of  a  pure  heart,  a  good  con- 
science, and  faith  unfeigned."  What  this  charity  is  was 
meant  to  be  determined.  In  some  cases  the  subject  or  at- 
tribute may  need  no  elucidation,  but  these  cases  are  uncom- 
mon, and  it  is  useful  to  reojard  them  so  and  to  determine 


UNITY  OF  THE   SUBJECT.  61 

well  what  is  to  be  proved.  The  mere  announcement  which 
suffices  for  the  preacher,  does  not  suffice  for  the  generality. 
And  thus  the  preacher,  even  if  the  hearers  be  not  ignorant 
of  his  subject,  should  give  it  vitality,  that  they  may  have  a 
strong  perception  of  the  point  which  he  is  to  prove  and  en- 
force in  his  sermon. 

2.  The  proposition  retains  simplicity,  even  though  it  have 
many  subjects  or  attributes,  provided  these  subjects  or  attri- 
butes form  a  whole.  "  In  this  the  children  of  God  are  man- 
ifest and  the  children  of  the  devil :  Whosoever  doeth  not 
righteousness,  and  loveth  not  Im  brethren,  is  not  of  God^ 
(1  John,  iii.  10.)  "  Follow  peace  with  all  men,  and  holiness, 
without  which  no  one  shall  see  the  Lord."  (Hebrews,  xii.  14.) 

Thus  a  discourse  which  exhibits  the  different  qualities  of  a 
thmg,  may  have  unity,  provided  these  qualities  are  such  that 
they  may  be  combined  in  one  and  the  same  attribute.  There 
is  no  oratorical  unity  in  the  description  of  a  machine,  of  a 
place,  of  a  man.  A  place  may  be  beautiful,  celebrated,  diffi- 
cult of  access,  uninhabited  ;  these  characteristics  of  it  are  not 
such  as  may  be  combined  in  one  and  the  same  attribute. 
But  when  there  is  an  idea  common  to  many  different  or  eve^- 
opposite  attributes,  it  may  be  expressed.  Thus  when  Ma^'' 
sillon  says  of  ambition,  that  it  is  restless,  scornful,  unjust;  lie 
does  not  violate  unity.  In  like  manner  there  is  unity  in  this 
passage :  "  Christ  was  made  unto  us  of  God,  wisdom,  right- 
eousness, sanctification  and  redemption."  (1  Corinthians,  i.  30.) 

3.  Tlie  qualities  of  a  thmg  may  be  subjoined,  not  only 
when  they  have  a  common  affinity  or  tendency,  but  when 
they  mutually  counterbalance  or  modify  or  limit  one  an- 
other. '•  Nevertheless  the  foundation  of  God  standeth  sure, 
having  this  seal :  The  Lord  hnoweth  them  that  are  his :  and, 
Let  him  that  nameth  the  name  of  Christ,  depart  from  iniquity  ^ 
(2  Timothy,  ii.  19.)  The  seal  of  the  foundation  laid  by  God 
is  of  two  parts,  but  they  are  inseparable  ; — a  twofold  char- 


62  UNITY   OF  THE  SUBJECT. 

acteristic  of  the  true  faith,  a  characteristic  which  is  genuine 
only  as  being  twofold. 

As  each  of  the  peculiar  truths  of  Christianity  consists  of 
two  truths,*  even  as  the  axis  has  necessarily  two  poles,f 
christian  preaching  may  often  introduce  subjects  of  this 
character  As  a  religion  which  reconciles  all  antitheses, 
should  begin  by  putting  them  in  relief,  it  is  well  that  our 
discourses  are  antithetic.  Thus  Bossuet  says :  "  The  spirit 
of  Christianity  is  the  spirit  of  firmness  and  resistance,  the  spirit 
of  charity  and  gentleness."J  Bourdaloue,  in  like  manner : 
"  On  the  severity  and  mildness  of  the  Christian  law^ 

4.  On  the  same  principle,  consequently,  there  is  unity  in  a 
complex  proposition,  when  the  propositions  of  which  it  con- 
sists are  integrant  parts  of  the  same  truth.  Thus  :  "  There  is 
no  perfect  bond  among  men  ;  but  charity  is  a  bond  of  perfect- 
ness."  (See  Colossians,  iii.  14.)  "  Things  which  have  not 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  God  hath  prepared  for  them 
that  love  him."  (1  Corinthians  ii.,  9.)  There  is  a  fine  exam- 
ple in  Saurin's  sermon  on  the  Repentance  of  the   Unchaste 

Woman. '^     Here  a  seeming  triplicity  is  reduced  to  perfect 
wiity-ll 

5.  I  find  unity  also  in  two  perfectly  independent  but  con- 

*  Observe,  for  example,  the  opposition  of  these  two  propositions : 
"  Answer  a  fool  according  to  his  folly  :  Answer  not  a  fool  according 
his  folly,"  (Proverbs,  xxvi.  4,  5  ;)  and  between  these  two  :  "  He  who 
is  not  with  me  is  against  me,"  (Luke,  xi.  23  ;)  and  "  He  who  is  not 
against  us  is  for  us,"  (Luke,  ix.  50.) 

f  It  is  the  distinction  of  Christianity,  that  it  has  restored  the 
broken  axis  and  reunited  the  two  poles. 

\  Troiscrae  sermon  pour  le  jour  de  la  Pentecote. 

§  Saurin,  tome  ii.,  p.  303,  Nouvelle  edition.  See  the  same  au- 
thor, tome  iv.,  p.  87. 

I  "This  instructive  history  presents  three  yqvj  different  objects  to 
our  meditation,  the  conduct  of  the  incontinent  woman,  that  of  the 
Pharisee,  and  that  of  Jesus  Christ  " — Tr. 


UNITY  OF  THE  SUBJECT.  63 

trasted  propositions ;  for  contrast  is  a  kind  of  unity.  Ex- 
amples :  "  Render  unto  Csesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's, 
and  unto  God  the  things  which  are  God's."  (Matthew,  xxiic 
21.)  "The  wicked  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punish- 
ment, but  the  righteous  into  life  eternal."  (Matthew,  xxv. 
46.)  Massillon's  sermon  on  the  death  of  the  sinner  and  the 
death  of  the  righteous^  makes  this  contrast  very  prominent.* 

6.  There  is  unity  where  there  is  a  successive  exposition  of 
a  general  truth  and  a  particular  truth,  of  which  the  first 
serves  as  the  basis  of  the  second,  or  of  which  the  second  com- 
pletes the  sense  of  the  first.  "  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  chari- 
ty, these  three,  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity."  (1 
Corinthians,  xii.  13.) 

But  I  think  that,  in  order  to  maintain  strict  unity,  the 
orator  must  make  the  particular  truth  his  object  and  his  end. 

We  cannot  preserve  unity  if  we  treat  successively  of  genus 
and  species,  f 

7.  There  is  unity  in  a  discourse  which  exposes  successive- 
ly a  principle  and  its  consequences  ;  for  the  principle  has  its 
interest  only  in  the  consequences,  and  these  have  their  solidity 
only  from  the  principle.  Thus,  "  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they 
who  worship  Him  must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." 
(John,  iv.  24.) 

Plurality  of  consequences  does  not  break  unity.  When 
we  speak  of  the  consequences,  however  numerous  they  may 
be,  we  speak  of  the  principle  ;  we  express  what  it  con- 
tains ;  we  make  known  its  influence  and  its  extent ;  we 
measure  it ;  we  give  the  principle  its  whole  character ;  we 
declare  at  what  price  it  is  to  be  accepted.  Example :  The 
Characteristics  of  Charity.     (1  Corinthians,  xiii.) 

8.  There  is  unity  in  a  discourse  which  after  expounding  a 

*  Sermon  pour  I'Avent, 

f  See  for  example,  la  Solitude  recommandee  au  pasteur,  in  the  Nou- 
velles   etudes  evangeliques,  p.  265. 


64  UNITY   OF  THE  SUBJECT. 

duty  indicates  the  motives  to  its  performance.  But  then 
there  is  here  one  part  which  is  auxiliary  or  instrumental  to 
the  other,  and  we  must  not  give  this  the  same  place  which 
we  give  the  other.  If  we  have  to  exhibit  a  duty  which  has 
not  been  known,  then  we  insist  but  little  on  the  motives,  we 
may  put  them  before  or  after ;  if  we  have  to  enforce  a  duty 
which  is  well  known,  we  give  our  care  to  the  forcible  pre- 
sentation of  the  motives.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  dis- 
course which  confines  itself  to  the  exposition  of  motives 
without  ascertaining  the  nature  of  the  duty ;  it  is  scarcely 
easier  to  conceive  of  one  which  speaks  of  duty  without  occu- 
pying itself  with  motives.  Didactic  unity  doubtless  may 
pass  them  by,  but  not  oratorical  unity.  In  every  case,  one 
of  the  parts,  now  one,  now  the  other,  must  be  made  promi- 
nent and  constitute  the  unity  of  the  subject. 

9.  Unity  may  have  place  in  a  discourse  which  in  treating 
of  a  fact  notes  its  different  circumstances.  Thus  in  the  ex- 
ample before  given,  Christ  is  made  unto  us,  on  the  part  of 
God^  wisdom,  righteousness,  sanctification  and  redemption. 
(1  Corinthians,  i.  30.)  I  mean  not  merely  that  a  proposi- 
tion in  which  the  subject  is  complex,  or  in  which  the  attribute 
is  complex,  (complicated,  I  "would  say,  with  an  adventitious 
circumstance,)  is,  on  that  account,  less  one  :  Thus,  "  a  double- 
minded  man  is  unstable  in  all  his  ways ;"  (James,  i.  8.)  That 
need  not  be  said.  I  speak  of  circumstances  which  jjaay  be 
omitted,  but  which  illustrate,  or  at  least  do  not  subtract  from 
the  main  object.  "As  you  have  always  obeyed  in  my  pres- 
ence, much  more  in  my  absence,  work  out  your  salvation." 
(Philippians,  ii.  12.)  Let  it  be  uaderstood  that  we  assume 
that  what  we  here  sanction,  is  to  be  performed  in  a  proper 
manner. 

There  are  cases  in  which  what  appears  as  a  circumstance, 
is  the  leading  idea.  "  Judas,  betrayest  thou  thus  the  Son  of 
Man  with  a  kiss?"  (Luke,  xxii.  48.)     To  betray,  (the  action,) 


UNITY  OF  THE  SUBJECT.  65 

the  Son  of  Man,  (the  object  of  the  action,)  the  kiss,  (the  mode 
of  the  action ;)  three  things  which  are  concurrent,  but  yet  of 
which  one,  for  example  the  kiss,  may  be  considered  separate- 
ly, and  form  the  theme  of  the  discourse.  Another  example, 
"  Do  good  unto  all  men,  especially  unto  the  household  of 
faithr  (Galatians,  vi.  10.)  See,  also,  Hebrews,  xii.  14,  "  Fol- 
low peace  with  all  men^''  and  Ephesians,  ii.  10,  "  created  in 
Christ  Jesus,  unto  good  works,  etc."  Thus  we  obtain  many 
plans  in  perspective,  and  that  which  now  has  precedence, 
may  at  another  time  give  place  to  another. 

10.  Unity  in  discourse  in  the  same  manner,  may  be  main- 
tained by  presenting  the  same  truth  in  several  relations  and 
bearings.  These  relations  or  bearings  are  accessories  which 
offer  no  violence  to  unity.  "  Grlory,  honor  and  peace  to 
every  man  who  doeth  good ;  to  the  Jew  first  and  also  to  the 
Gentile."  (Romans,  ii.  10.)  "I  exercise  myself  to  have  al- 
ways a  conscience  void  of  offence  toward  God  and  toward 
man."  (Acts,  xxiv.  16.)  In  a  case  like  the  last,  however,  it 
is  difficult  to  prevent  one  of  the  relations  indicated,  from  be- 
coming the  principal  object  of  the  discourse. 

11.  There  is  no  inconsistency  with  unity  in  the  exhibition 
and  application  of  the  same  proposition  to  different  classes 
of  hearers,  on  whom  it  should  make  different  impressions. 
If  the  truth  in  its  principle  is  the  same  to  all,  yet  the  impress- 
ions which  some  receive  from  it  tend  to  confirm  the  im- 
pressions of  others.  The  returning  confirms  the  salient  angle, 
and  this  confirms  that :  Sadness  and  joy,  fear  and  hope,  cor- 
respond reciprocally  to  each  other. 

12.  One  and  the  same  discourse  may  treat  of  a  fact  and  its 
mode,  of  a  duty  and  the  means  of  performing  it,  without  vio- 
lating the  law  of  unity.* 

*  Seo  the  sermon  8ur  la  Sanctification  in  the  Meditations  evangel- 
iques. 


66  UNITY  OF  THE  SUBJECT. 


ADDITIONAL    REMARKS    ON    UNITY    OF    SUBJECT. 

1.  Although  a  factitious,  verbal  unity,  the  result  of  an  arti- 
fice of  language,  is  real  unity  only  in  the  view  of  inattentive 
minds,  the  sports  of  appearances,*  I  cannot  object  to  the 
process  by  which  two  objects  in  themselves  not  forming 
unity,  are  placed  under  a  common  point  of  view,  covered  by 
a  common  idea,  which  allows  of  their  presentation  as  a  whole. 
In  fact,  there  is  nothing  here  factitious  or  false ;  it  is  a  unity, 
not  fabricated,  but  discovered ;  it  existed  before ;  it  was  only 
necessary,  to  set  in  relief  the  side  on  which  it  was  perceptible. 
Thus  Bourdaloue,  Car  erne,  tome  i.,p.  198,  col.  2,  edition  Lefevre. 

2.  After  having  laid  down  the  principles  of  rigid  oratorical 
unity,  and  maintained  it  in  each  of  the  forms  which  I  have 
indicated,  I  will  add,  that  in  presenting  the  ideal  of  orator- 
ical  composition,  I  do  not  exclude  all  preaching  which  is  not 
strictly  conformed  to  it. 

The  French  preachers  of  the  Catholic  communion  adhere 
to  this  ideal  more  closely  than  others.  A  sermon  of  theirs 
generally  forms  a  bundle  more  compact,  a  sheaf  better  pre- 
pared to  be  put  into  the  garner.  This  accords  with  the 
character  of  the  nation,  which  demands  in  all  respects  the 
satisfaction  of  the  aesthetic  sentiment,  which  perhaps  has  the 
predominant  influence  in  art. 

It  is  wise  to  be  restricted,  as  these  preachers  were,  to  the 
most  severe  method,  and  to  reserve  liberties  for  the  age  of 
experience  and  maturity  ;  and  the  maxim  of  Fenelon,  taken 
to  the  letter,  is  a  good  one  at  the  beginning  :  "  All  discourse 
which  has  unity,  may  be  reduced  to  a  single  proposition : 

*  Thus,  speaking  of  spiritual  and  political  liberty  in  a  sermon  on 
"The  truth  shall  make  you  free."  (John,  viii.  32.)  Tlius,  again,  on 
the  text,  "My  commandment  is  exceeding  broad,"  (Psalm  xix.  96,) 
a  preacher  under  warrant  of  the  word  broad,  proved  successively 
that  the  law  of  God  embraced  many  things,  and  then  that  it  extended 
itself  over  the  whole  earth. 


UNITY   OF   THE   SUBJECT.  67 

The  discourse  is  the  proposition  developed ;  the  proposition 
is  the  discourse  abridged."* 

It  is  useful  to  subject  each  of  your  discourses  to  this  test. 
Let  it  not  be  enough  to  be  able  to  give  them  a  title  ;  endea- 
vor to  condense  them  into  one  proposition ;  and  distrust 
your  work  when  you  camiot  succeed,  f  Could  Reinhard  ever 
have  reduced  to  one  proposition  the  sermon  he  has  entitled, 
Uber  die  FreudigTceit  des  Glauhens  (on  the  joy  of  faith)  % 

The  scheme  of  it  is  this : 

1.  Conditions  of  this  joy  : 

a.  Seriousness ;  b.  Docility  ;  c.  Impartiality. 

2.  Grounds  of  this  joy  : 

a.  Scripture ;  b.  Excellence  of  the  gospel ;  c.  Experience. 

3.  Effects  of  this  joy  : 

a.  Firmness ;  b.  Frank  confession ;  c.  Zeal  for  the  pro- 
pagation of  the  gospel. 

4.  TTie  value  of  this  joy  : 

a.  The  certitude  which  it  gives ;  b.  Courage  in  misfor- 
tune ;  c.  Hope  of  heaven. 

To  make  the  didactic  character  of  pulpit  eloquence  an 
apology  for  such  a  discourse,  would  be  to  cut  up  the  sub- 
stance of  morality  and  theology  into  chapters.  Now  we  do 
not  think  that  a  sermon  is  a  chapter  ;  in  all  cases  a  chapter 
is  too  long,  I  mean  intellectually.  It  is  easy  to  fall  into  this 
error  after  contenting  ourselves  with  a  title,  such  as  Rhein- 
hard  has  given  to  his  discourse. 

Even  in  the  other  case,  that  in  which  the  sermon  has  a 
proposition  for  a  title,  may  not  the  subject  have  too  much 

*  Fenelon,  Lettre  ecrite  a  rAcademie  Fran9aise,  ir.  The  first  of 
these  two  phrases,  is  not  a  textual  citation,  but  a  summary ;  the  sec- 
ond, on  the  contrary,  is  wholly  from  Fenelon. — [Editors.] 

f  Theremin  has  a  sermon  on  Hebrews,  xii.  11,  which  he  does  not 
entitle,  Die  Leiden  (suffering),  but  Alles  Leiden  ist  Strafe  (all  8ufi"ering 
is  chastisement). 


bo  UNITY  OF  THE   SUBJECT. 

breadth  1  Not  in  itself.  It  may  embrace  too  particular 
subjects ;  we  cannot  think  it  can  be  too  broad.  Extent  is 
not  multiplicity  ;  it  does  not  therefore  exclude  unity,  which 
may  be  as  much  wanting  in  a  discourse  on  a  very  particular 
subject,  as  in  one  on  a  very  general  subject.  Everything  de- 
pends on  the  execution.  It  is  proper  and  useful  to  present  to 
an  auditory  sometimes  a  subject  of  a  very  vast  extent;  but  then 
we  must  not  introduce  into  it  all  the  ideas  which  we  would 
introduce  into  each  of  its  parts,  taken  separately,  as  the  sub- 
ject of  an  entire  sermon.  There  are,  it  is  true,  very  intellec- 
tual auditories,  and  perhaps  a  very  intellectual  orator  might 
be  able,  without  violating  the  laws  of  unity,  to  keep  their  at- 
tention quite  to  the  close  of  a  sermon  equal  to  two  com- 
mon ones.*  Particular  subjects  are  more  useful  at  first ; 
they  oblige  us  to  examine  thoroughly,  to  search  out  ideas 
which,  in  vast  subjects,  present  themselves  in  a  crowd.  We 
should,  on  this  account,  study  with  caution  the  great  models 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  Their  majesty,  with  which  we 
are  so  impressed,  proceeds  in  part  from  the  breadth  of  the 
subjects  of  which  they  treat.  Bourdaloue,  nevertheless,  was 
very  popular  during  the  thirty-four  years  to  which  his  career 
as  a  preacher  extended,  because,  in  his  vast  sermons,  he  ob- 
served the  rules  we  have  mentioned.  But,  in  general,  we 
should  prefer  a  few  ideas  thoroughly  examined,  or  well  illus- 
trated, to  a  great  number  of  ideas  lightly  touched  upon. 

As  a  summary  of  our  complementary  remarks,  we  add 
in  conclusion,  that  there  are  two  tests  of  unity  ;  one  logical, 
which  consists  in  reducing  the  whole  discourse  to  a  single 
proposition  ;  the  other  psychological  or  sentimental,  which 
consists  in  consulting  our  own  impression  and  that  of  the 
auditory,  on  this  twofold  question  :  Has  the  course  been 
finished  ?  Has  the  limit  been  passed  1  The  soul,  the  life, 
still  better  than  the  understanding,  knows  what  unity  of  the 
subject  consists  in.  * 

*  Bourdaloue  sur  la  Passion. 


INTEKEST  OF  THE  SUBJECT.  69 


CHAPTER  II. 

INTEKEST    OF  THE    SUBJECT. 

It  may  be  thought  that  this  chapter  should  have  been  the 
first ;  this  is  not  our  opinion.  We  must  present  the  subject 
itself  of  pulpit  discourse,  before  inquiring  in  what  consists 
the  interest  of  the  subject. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  prove  that  preaching  should  treat  of 
only  interesting  subjects,  but  what,  in  a  pulpit-point  of  view, 
is  an  interesting  subject,  is  the  question  before  us. 

Interest^  a  word  which  expresses  both  the  subjective  and 
the  objective,  denotes,  in  the  second  sense,  the  property  of 
an  object  to  draw  our  thought  and  soul  to  itself,  so  that  our 
happiness,  in  some  measure,  depends  on  it.  The  etymology 
{inter-esse)  defines  the  word,  as  it  does  ordinarily.  In  a  sub- 
jective sense,  interest  consists  in  identifying  ourselves  more 
or  less  profoundly  and  permanently  with  an  object  which  is 
out  of  us. 

Didactic  interest  manifests  itself  when  our  thought  or 
our  reason  perceives  an  agreement  between  itself  and  the 
object  which  is  proposed  to  it.  Purely  oratorical  interest 
reveals  itself  in  a  sense  of  the  manifest  importance  of  our 
taking  such  or  such  a  proposed  determination.  When  no 
determination  is  to  be  taken,  oratorical  interest  has  no  place. 

But  we  may  express  little  or  much  in  requiring  that  a  ser- 
mon should  be  interesting.  Remark  attentively  (for  this 
observation  advances  us  toward  our  object)  that  in  the 
view  of  artists,  the   principal  end   and  triumph  of  art  is 


70  INTEKEST  OF  THE   SUBJECT. 

not  interest.  They  endeavor  to  affect  parts  of  our  be 
ing  in  which  interest,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term, 
has  little  place  ;  they  aspire  to  a  region  above  those  in 
which  our  ordinary  affections  move.  The  interest  here 
is  indeed  greater,  but  it  is  not  commonly  called  by  this 
name. 

The  artist  herein,  is  guided,  if  not  by  a  holy  purpose,  at 
least  by  a  superior  instinct,  and  it  is  in  this  truly  that  the 
dignity  of  art  resides.  But  while  he  addresses  himself  to 
the  contemplative  faculty,  the  preacher  addresses  a  faculty 
yet  loftier,  that  which  Saint  Paul  calls  spirit^  by  which  we 
rise  to  invisible  and  celestial  things,  that  better  self^  of  which 
Saint  Paul  also  speaks,  which  even  in  sin,  perceives  itself  dis- 
tinct, separates  itself  from  the  other  self  and  disavows  it. 
It  is  then  an  ideal  hearer  that  the  preacher  would  interest ; 
but  he  must  first  evoke,  first  create  him,  so  to  speak.  The 
poet  has  not  this  disadvantage  ;  he  finds  man  as  he  needs 
him,  ready-made  ;  at  least,  he  has  not  the  trouble  which  the 
preacher  has  in  awakening  him.  Man,  by  contemplation, 
voluntarily  raises  himself  to  ideas  ;  but  man  does  not  raise 
himself  naturally  to  spiritual  things,  or  to  God.  In  his  es- 
tate of  sin,  he  thinks  he  cannot  raise  himself  to  God  without 
forsaking  himself ;  in  other  terms,  God  is  not  his  happiness  ; 
his  happiness  is  out  of  God.  It  is  not  merely  an  illusion  of 
his  corrupt  nature,  it  is  rather  a  revelation  of  his  better 
nature,  which,  while  it  presents  God  to  him  as  a  dread- 
ful judge,  does  not  permit  him  to  combine  two  ideas  origin- 
ally inseparable,  God  and  happiness.  Christianity  has  re- 
moved this  difficulty  ;  Christianity,  alone,  among  all  relig- 
ion, does  not  separate  us  from  ourselves  ;  it  shows  us  a 
reconciled  God,  and  permits  us  or  rather  obliges  us  to 
combine  the  two  ideas  which  have  been  violently  separated. 
In  exhibiting  this  truth,  the  preacher  becomes  conscious  of 
the  presence  of  that  ideal  auditor,  which  he  does  not  find  al- 


INTEEEST  OF  THE  SUBJECT.  71 

ready  prepared  for  him  in  each  of  us  ;  then  after  he  has  ob- 
tained him,  he  goes  on  to  speak  to  him  ;  he  speaks  to  this 
man  of  that  which  this  man  henceforth  loves.  This  is  his 
task,  this  his  object.  This  is  the  interest  of  preaching — to 
invite  to  God,  (a  matter  of  interest  to  the  natural  man,)  to 
preach  holiness  to  the  ideal  or  spiritual  man,  henceforth  ex- 
istent. According  to  this  standard,  or  under  this  twofold 
form,  we  are  to  regard  a  sermon  as  mteresting. 

Such  is  the  general  principle  as  to  interest  in  preaching. 
Now,  is  it  possible  to  give  rules  more  particular  and  more 
precise  than  the  principle  ?  We  must  indeed  always  bear  in 
mind  the  meaning  and  scope  of  the  principle.  Are  those 
subjects,  which  amiounce  a  dogma  or  a  duty  of  Christianity, 
the  only  ones  which  are  proper  in  the  pulpit '?  If  so,  must 
we  not  exclude  from  the  pulpit  such  a  subject  as  this — which 
was  treated  by  Remhard  :  Distinguished  men  are  an  enigma 
to  the  multitude  ?*  According  to  this  position,  since  the 
Bible  surely  should  be  no  less  christian  than  our  sermon, 
what  am  I  to  do  with  this  passage  of  Proverbs  (treated  by 
Irving) :  "  Iron  sharpeneth  iron  ;  so  a  man  sharpeneth  the 
countenance  of  his  friend  V — (Proverbs,  xxvii.  17.) 

To  resolve  these  and  similar  questions,  we  must  possess 
ourselves  of  another  principle.  Every  truth  is  a  part  of  truth. 
Christianity  embraces  all  ;  it  shows  the  sovereignty  of  its 
principle,  not  by  destroying  anything  whatever,  but  by  as- 
similating all  things  to  itself.  To  the  Christian,  everything 
becomes  christian ;  nothing  is  absolutely  foreign  to  the  prov- 
ince of  the  Gospel  ;  it  saves  the  whole  of  man,  it  saves  the 
whole  of  life.  Whence  it  is,  that  when  once  Christianity 
controls  the  life,  a  great  liberty  is  enjoyed,  and  to  this  liberty 
a  slight  previous  servitude  is  the  apprenticeship.     Nothing 

*  "  Wie  raethslehaft  ausgezeichnete  Menschen  der  grossen  Menge 
See  Reinhard,  Sermons  for  1809,  tome  ii.,  p.  228,  on  Acts, 
1-10. 


72  INTEEEST  OF  THE  SUBJECT. 

except  sin  is  profane  ;  life  is  not  divided  ;  there  is  no  point 
at  which  Christianity  stops  abruptly ;  as  well  forbid  the  at- 
mosphere of  two  countries  to  intermix  above  the  mountains 
which  form  a.  boundary  between  them.  On  the  contrary,  the 
truth  frees  us  from  conventional  distinctions  or  separations, 
as  well  as  from  all  others ;  our  liberty  is  proportioned  to  our 
submission  ;  our  latitude  to  our  precision. 

What  has  disparaged  certain  subjects  is  nothing  in  their 
own  nature,  it  is,  that  they  have  not  been  treated  in  a  christian 
manner :  By  Christians,  they  would  have  been  made  christian. 
Let  them  be  treated  in  a  different  spirit,  but  let  them  be  treated. 

Whatever  of  a  voluntary  and  moral  nature  belongs  to  hu- 
man life,  the  Bible,  it  must  be  admitted,  accepts  and  express- 
es. I  do  not  say  that  every  verse  in  the  Bible  which  has  this 
character,  is  a  proper  text  for  a  sermon,*  but  what  it  embraces 
may  have  place  ma  sermon,  as  it  may  in  life,  in  religion. 

This  is  not  saying  that  because  everything  is  regarded  by 
a  Christian  in  a  christian  manner,f  everything  may  become 
a  subject  for  a  sermon.  The  pulpit  has  not  been  erected  to 
treat  all  things  in  a  christian  manner ;  it  has  a  special  pur- 
pose, which  is  to  introduce  the  christian  idea  into  life.  It 
draws  from  the  mine  the  precious  metal,  out  of  which  each 
one  may  make  vessels  and  instruments  for  his  own  private 
use.  In  its  principles,  and  in  its  particular  applications,  it  is 
properly  Christianity  which  it  teaches :  Christianity  is  upper- 
most ;  Christianity  is  its  object ;  all  else  is  but  example,  illus- 
tration, etc. 

Under  the  negative  form,  then,  the  only  one  which  can  be 
given  to  this  precept,  I  would  say :  whatever  does  not  tend 
to  edification,  (to  form  Christ  within  us) — whatever  an  ordi- 
nary hearer  cannot  of  himself  convert  into  the  bread  of  life, 

*  Thus,  Ecclesiastes,  v.  9.     The  profit  of  the  earth  is  for  all,  the 
king  himself  is  served  of  the  field.     See,  also,  Proverbs,  xxvii.  22-2'7. 
f  Omnia  pura  puris.     (Titus,  i.  15,)  comp.  Luke,  xi.  41. 


INTEEEST   OF   THE   SUBJECT.  73 

or  at  least,  whatever  in  the  preacher's  own  apprehension  has 
not  this  character,  is  not  to  be  made  the  subject  of  preaching. 

We  are  to  exclude,  of  course,  every  theme  v*'hich  has  world- 
ly interest  directly  for  its  object.  We  are  to  present  religion 
as  favoring  this,  only  so  far  as  may  be  necessary  to  evince 
the  universal  goodness  of  God,  and  the  truth  of  religion  it- 
self.* Never  should  the  Christian  pulpit  be  sold  to  the  in- 
terests of  this  passing  life.  There  was  a  time  when  the  pul- 
pit had  to  do  with  subjects  of  worldly  interest  almost  ex- 
clusively. When  the  church,  undermined  by  infidelity,  un- 
dermined especially  by  the  corruption  of  her  ministers,  had 
to  ask  compassion  for  what  remained  to  her  of  existence,  she 
gave  herself,  as  if  she  had  been  a  mercenary,  to  the  circula- 
tion of  whatever  ideas  she  was  furnished  with,  in  order  to 
gain  a  miserable  subsistence.  Dr.  Ammon  tells  us :  "  Schlez, 
in  his  sermons  on  Rural  Economy,  (Nuremberg,  1788,)  has 
undertaken  to  speak  of  fallow-grounds ;  before  his  time,  homi- 
letical  instruction  was  given  on  silk-worms.  Another  preach- 
er pourtrayed,  in  a  touching  manner,  the  duties  of  Chris- 
tians at  the  appearance  of  a  murrain ;  this  preacher  was 
higlily  praised,  even  for  the  choice  of  his  subject.  The  dis- 
tance thence  was  not  far,  to  substitutes  for  sugar  and  coffee, 
in  times  when  these  commodities  are  scarce,  to  the  Christian 
mode  of  cultivating  red  beets,  and  the  truly  pious  method 
of  making  tobacco.  Did  not  Luther  aimounce  that  the  time 
was  not  distant  when  there  would  be  preaching  on  blue 
ducks'?  That  time  will  come  soon.f"  So  wrote  Dr.  Ammon, 
in  1812. 

Shall  we  exclude  also,  objects  w-hich  respect  social  good? 
No :  still,  we  will  say  that  whatever  aims  to  advance  society 

*  Perversion  of  this  passage :  "  Godliness  is  profitable  unto  all 
things."     (1  Timothy,  iv.  8.) 

\  Ammon's  Ardeitung  zur  Kanzelberedsaukeit,  tome  ii.,  at  the  be- 
ginning. 

4 


74  INTEEEST   OF  THE  SUBJECT. 

without  doing  this  through  the  individual,  (through  the  indi- 
vidual's christian  advancement,)  is  external  to  the  object  of 
preaching. 

Whatever  has  science  for  its  direct  object,  and  religion 
only  as  incidental  to  this,  forms  no  part  of  the  subject  matter 
of  pulpit  discourse. 

I  add  again,  assuming  the  observance  of  all  these  rules, 
that  the  interest  of  pulpit  discourse  is  not  only  of  a  religious, 
but  of  a  Christian  character.  To  the  true  minister,  the  true 
Christian,  there  is  but  one  religion.  No  subject  is  to  be 
treated,  which  does  not  re-produce  without  effort,  the  charac- 
teristic traits  of  the  gospel,  its  peculiar  physiognomy,  every- 
thing which  prevents  not  only  the  confounding,  but  even  the 
comparing  of  it  with  any  other  system.  It  must  have  this 
distinctiveness.  I  do  not  say  in  form  only,  or  in  form  al- 
ways, but  so  palpably  in  spirit,  that  a  man  who  hears  it  for 
the  first  time,  will  be  struck  with  something  new  and  abso- 
lutely peculiar,  and  have  a  pungent  sensation  of  something 
divine  penetrating  into  some  part  of  his  soul.  What  should 
we  say  of  a  political  discourse,  and  especially  of  a  series  of 
political  discourses,  which  would  not  give  a  stranger  who  has 
just  arrived,  some  impression  of  the  general  form  of  gov- 
ernment under  which  the  orator  and  his  hearers  live  ? 

Having  explained  all  these  points,  and  assured  to  preach- 
ing all  the  liberty  and  space  which  its  principle  allows  it, 
which  its  mission  presents  to  it,  we  return  to  the  formula, 
the  adoption  of  which  we  have  been  holding  in  suspense : 
Christian  doctrine  and  Christian  morality  form  the  proper 
and  i^eculiar  matter  of  pulpit  discourse.  But  wc  give  pre- 
cision to  this  formula  by  subjoining  that  of  Schott :  "  Doc- 
trine, so  far  as  it  has  a  practical  bearing ;  and  moralitj^  in 
its  immediate  and  natural  relation  to  doctrine."* 

*  Schott,  Die  Theorie  der  Beredsamkeit,  mit  besonderer  Anwendung 
auf  die  geistliche  Beredsamkeit,  tome  ii.,  at  the  beginning. 


DOCTEINAL  SUBJECTS.  75 

Decomposing  with  him  this  general  idea,  we  find  as  proper 
to  the  pulpit  the  five  classes  of  subjects  which  he  indicates  : 

1.  Doctrinal  subjects  properly  so  called. 

2.  Moral  subjects  properly  so  called. 

3.  Historical  subjects. 

4.  Subjects  drawn  from  the  contemplation  and  study  of 
nature. 

5.  Psychological  subjects. 

§  1.  Doctrinal  Subjects. 

Subjects  of  this  class  are  such  as  are  suited  to  give  the 
Christian  life  a  solid  foundation,  in  all  times  and  places.  Of 
course,  they  are  never  to  be  exhibited  in  the  purely  scientific 
method. 

It  is  not  everything  in  doctrine  that  forms  this  kind  of  sub- 
ject matter ;  it  is  the  most  substantial  part,  the  heart  of  each 
truth.  Not  that  the  rest  is  indifferent,  or  unworthy  of  atten- 
tion ;  but  it  has  its  use  elsewhere,  and  what  is  not  proper  for 
the  pulpit,  may  be  employed  in  fortifying  the  outworks  of 
that  truth  which  is  very  suitable  to  the  pulpit. 

Excellent  teachers  have  sermons  which  may  be  called 
theological.  Perhaps  they  were  sometimes  wrong  in  treating 
of  such  subjects  ;  perhaps  there  is  more  wrong  on  our  part 
that  we  do  not  treat  of  them.  Theology,  as  a  discussion  of 
the  text,  or  a  comparison  of  systems,  is  not  suited  to  the  pul- 
pit ;  but  as  a  thorough  consideration  of  saving  truth,  it  has 
its  place  in  preaching.  Some  theological  sermons  may  be 
compared  to  the  celebrated  tragedies  of  Corneille  :  they  per- 
tain not  to  a  genus,  if  you  will,  but  are  an  exception,  which 
requires  execution  to  justify  it.  But  still  the  exception  is 
admitted.  The  contemplation  of  sublime  things  is  not  with- 
out its  effect  on  the  heart  and  the  will.  It  is  useful,  as  we 
have  said,  to  elevate  all  the  human  powers ;  the  soul  purifies 
itself  in  these  lofty  regions. 


76  DOCTEHSTAL  SUBJECTS. 

Moreover,  it  is  not  easy  to  say  what  is  theology  and  what 
is  not.  We  must  not  refer  to  the  title  to  decide.  Tillotson 
has  a  theological  sermon  on  sin ;  that  of  Chalmers  on  the 
same  subject  is  not  theological.  Saurin,  in  treating  of  the 
beatific  vision  of  God^  (1  John,  iii.  2,)  need  not  have  been 
theological,  and  he  is  not  so  everywhere  ;  but  he  is  too  often 
so.  He  demonstrates  that  this  vision  produces  a  communi- 
cation of  ideas,  of  love,  of  virtue,  of  happiness.* 

If  we  should  transform  theology  into  religion,  with  strong- 
er reason  should  we  not  transform  religion  into  theology,  as 
Saurin  has  done  in  the  sermon  we  have  cited ;  and  as  we  al- 
ways do  when  we  analyze  and  dissect  tgo  much.  Every  dis 
section  of  a  moral  fact  is  supposititious  and  hypothetical. 
We  separate  that  which  is  not  separated,  which  cannot  be, 
which,  if  separated,  would  lose  its  nature  ;  there  is  therefore 
in  analysis,  performed  in  the  best  manner,  something  false, 
were  it  only  in  giving  successiveness  to  simultaneous  facts. 
Against  this,  perhaps  God  would  guard  us,  by  giving  to  all 
truths,  or  leaving  on  them  the  synthetic  and  complex  form. 
To  express  them,  undoubtedly,  is  already  to  analyze  them, 
as  little  analytical  as  the  expression  may  be ;  but  we  may 
say,  the  Spirit  who  dictated  the  Scriptures  has  avoided  the 
rigour  of  scientific  formulas,  and  preserved  to  the  ideas  the 
most  synthetic  character  of  which  they  were  susceptible,  see- 
ing that  it  was  his  design  to  announce  them.  With  this,  we 
have  not  been  content,  and  have  analyzed  what  was  not,  tak- 
ing as  strict  classifications  what  were  but  apparent  ones. 
The  abuse  has  advanced  even  to  puerility.  With  the 
same  seriousness  with  which  we  should  distinguish  with 
Saint  Paul,  the  spirit,  the  soul  and  the  body,  a  preacher 
of  a  certain  class  distinguishes  between  honor,  glory  and 
immortality ;    what   is  in  the  heavens,  on   the  earth   and 

*  See  Saurin,  tome  iii.,  page  103,  nouvelle  edition,  sur  les  idees  de 
Dieu,  et  page  114,  sur  les  sentiments  de  Dieu. 


APOLOGETICAL  SUBJECTS.  77 

under  the  earth ;  the  sheep  and  the  lambs  which  Saint 
Peter  was  to  feed  ;  not  only  does  he  give  each  word  a  mean- 
ing, to  which  I  consent,  but  he  erects  into  scientific  classifica- 
tions, oratorical  repetitions,  the  accumulation  of  emphasis, 
figures  of  speech,  Hebrew  parallelisms,  &c.  Exegesis  has 
rendered  so  much  service  that  we  should  not  be  unwilling  to 
forgive  it  much,  but  truly  in  this  matter  it  has  much  to  be 
forgiven. 

Let  us  beware  of  this  cruel  anatomy  practised  on  the 
living,  and  always  murderous.  In  treating  the  passage,  He- 
brew iv.,  12,  "The  word  of  God  pierces  even  to  the  soul 
and  spirit,  the  joints  and  the  marrow ;"  let  us  not  undertake 
to  distinguish  nicely  the  elements  of  a  passage,  the  con- 
fusion of  which  forms  its  beauty.  What  would  be  the  aston- 
ishment of  Saint  Paul  if  he  should  see  a  discourse  founded,  or 
a  system  built  on  distinctions  of  which  he  never  thought ! 

Purely  intellectual  sermons,  such  as  those  of  Dwight  on 
the  Sabbath,  of  Clark  on  the  Existence  of  God,  do  not  appear 
to  me  to  be  sermons  ;  not  that  I  would  deny  that  there  are 
times  and  places,  in  which  such  discourses  may  be  preached. 

Apologetical  subjects  may  be  introduced  into  the  pulpit. 
In  one  sense  all  preaching  is  apologetical ;  but  taking  the 
word  in  the  ordinary  sense,  the  thing  which  it  expresses  is 
not  to  have  place  in  preaching  except  with  much  discretion. 
The  nature  of  the  auditory,  the  small  extent  of  the  discourse, 
scarcely  comports  with  it.  In  seeking  to  edify,  let  us  fear 
giving  scandal.  Let  us  not  forget  that  in  Christianity,  to 
show  is  to  demonstrate.*      Virtutem  videant.\ 

There  is  a  general  apologetique^  which  in  every  country, 
may  supply  subjects  for  the  pulpit.  Saurin,  [sufficiency  of 
revlation,)  Bourdaloue,  [the  wisdom  and  mildness  of  the 
Christian    law,)   Tillotson,    [the    tranquillity  which  religion 

*  "Montrer  c'est  demontrer." 
f  Perseus,  Satire  iii.  v.  38. 


78  CONTROVERSIAL  SUBJECTS. 

gives,  and  the  utility  of  religion  in  relation  to  societies)  have 
not  shunned  them. 

The  sermons  on  Boyle's  Foundation,  those  of  Chalmers' 
on  Astronomy,  are  not  to  be  condemned,  but  they  appear  to 
require  a  special  auditory.  It  is  to  be  wished  there  were 
auditories  to  which  sermons  of  this  kind  might  be  prop- 
erly addressed.  Perhaps  there  is  too  much  timidity  in  intro- 
ducing such  subjects. 

After  apologetical  subjects  it  is  proper  to  mention  contro- 
versial ones.  The  proper  controversy  of  the  pulpit  is  con- 
troversy with  sin,  which  is  the  great  heresy.  That  of  sym- 
bol with  symbol,  of  Church  with  Church,  is,  in  general,  un- 
seemly. It  may  be  said  that  sin  is  at  the  bottom  of  every 
heresy,  or  easily  attaches  itself  to  it ;  that  in  religion  no  error 
is  inactive.  Tliis  is  true ;  but  then  either  this  heresy  does  not 
present  itself  to  the  notice  of  your  church,  and  then  why  speak 
of  it  ?  or,  it  is  under  its  observation,  and  then,  in  general,  it 
is  better  to  overcome  evil  with  good,  to  absorb  error  in 
truth.     Here  again  we  say,  Virtutem  videant. 

We  may  not,  however,  always  avoid  controversy.  We 
must  observe  the  errors  which  appear  in  the  places  where 
we  preach ;  those  at  least  which  have  footing  therein ;  but 
we  must  not  do  them  the  service  of  publishing  them,  and 
propagate  while  we  oppose  them. 

The  Apostles  who  protested  against  vain  disputes,  engaged 
in  controversy.  But  they  did  this  after  the  maimer  of  Saint 
Paul,  who  hastened  to  the  end,  passed  swiftly  on  to  edification, 
never  permitting  any  question  to  remain  in  a  purely  specula- 
tive state.* 

May  the  truths  of  natural  religion  have  place  in  a  sermon? 

*  Examples:  Romans,  xi.  32,  36  ;  Galatians,  iv.  19,  20 ;  Romans,  v. 
(See  what  precedes;)  Hebrews,  x.  19-25.  We  may  read  the  ser- 
mon on  Transuhstantiation  in  the  Theological  sermons  of  Tillotson, 
vol.  iii.,  p.  817,  371 ;  and  in  vol.  ii.,  that  on  The  Uncertainty  of  Salva- 
tion in  the  Romish  Church. 


NATURAL   RELIGION.  79 

The  first  difficulty  presents  itself  in  the  announcement  of  the 
question.  What  are  we  to  understand  by  the  truths  of 
natural  religion  1  Where  is  the  limit '?  These  truths  have 
received  a  new  aspect  from  Christianity,  a  new  form  apart 
from  which  the  Christian  preacher  is  not  at  liberty  to  regard 
them.  As  he  cannot  abstract  Christianity  from  them,  he 
can  place  himself  at  the  stand-point  of  purely  natural  relig- 
ion only  by  a  fiction  which  is  neither  proper  nor  profitable. 
There  are  natural  truths  in  Christianity,  but  they  are  trans- 
formed, completed.  And  what  advantage  is  there  of  de- 
priving them  of  the  complement  which  they  received  from 
Christianity?  By  the  same  means  by  which  we  preach 
Christianity  we  also  preach  natural  religion,  and  there  is  no 
necessity  for  sermons  distinctively  on  the  latter.  In  the  pul- 
pit, indeed,  it  is  much  better  to  consider  the  truths  which 
religion  embraces  as  internal  moral  facts,-  than  as  objective 
verities. 

It  is  doubtless  always  well  to  show  that  we  carry  withm 
us  truths  which  Christianity  has  come  to  confirm — a  germ 
which  it  has  made  fruitful.  There  are  arguments  of  more  or 
less  strength  in  favor  of  certain  verities  on  which  religion 
rests  and  which  it  implies,  and  in  favor  also  of  the  duties  of 
morality.  These  arguments  the  Bible  itself  uses,  especially 
in  enforcing  morality.  As  to  the  doctrines  of  natural  relig- 
ion, we  only  give  a  sketch  of  the  demonstration  which  Chris- 
tianity completes.  I  would  not  make  these  arguments  seem 
more  strong,  nor  yet  more  feeble  than  they  are.  Let  us  not 
forget,  moreover,  that  the  preachers  who  by  complaisance  or 
by  an  ill-considered  method  have  sought  to  conduct  their 
hearers  to  revealed  religion  through  natural,  have  had  little 
success.  Revealed  religion  leads  better  to  the  natural  than 
the  latter  to  the  former.  This  is  not  a  paradoxical  assertion. 
In  truth,  natural  religion,  as  it  is  called,  assumes  the  reality, 
and  deserves  the  name  of  religion  only  after  it  has  received 


80  SUBJECTS  OF  MORALITY. 

the  seal  of  revelation.  For  natural  religion,  in  the  strict 
sense,  there  is  none.  Eevelation  gives  a  certainty,  a  new 
perception  to  truths,  which  though  presupposed,  have  as  yet 
no  vitality,  no  influence  on  the  conscience.  Evangelical 
preachers,  generally,  make  no  trial  of  this  false  method  ;  it 
is  rationalism  which  prefers  treating  these  subjects.  If  its 
object  were  the  display  of  eloquence,  it  would  be  greatly 
mistaken ;  even,  oratorically,  the  truths  of  natural  religion 
left  to  themselves,  are  nothing  ;  and  the  oratorical  advantage 
of  the  Christian  over  the  rationalistic  preacher,  is  beyond 
estimation. 

§  2.  Subjects  of  Morality. 

Moral  subjects,  and  the  word  moral  itself,  are  at  this  day 
very  unjustly  disparaged.  Though  this  word  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  gospel,  we  must  not  conclude,  on  this  account, 
that  the  use  of  it  is  improper.  The  Bible  uses  the  language 
not  of  science,  but  of  life,  and  constantly  inculcates  morality, 
without  supposing  it  necessary  or  useful  to  tell  us  what  mor- 
ality is.  It  uses  the  word  virtue  scarcely  more,  and  yet  we 
constantly  speak  of  the  Christian  virtues,  without  the  least 
impropriety.  What  has  discredited  moral  subjects,  is  the 
manner  in  which  they  are  often  treated  ;  by  separating  mor- 
ality from  the  doctrine  from  which  it  derives  its  authority 
and  its  efficacy,  rendering  it  distasteful  and  insipid.  We 
may  then,  without  impropriety,  restore  the  word.  Morality 
is  the  doctrine  of  manners,  or  of  practical  life,  consider- 
ed in  its  relations  to  law  and  grace.  We  have  little  hesita- 
tion in  obtaining  from  it  subjects  for  the  pulpit,  when  we  at- 
tend to  the  following  considerations  : 

1.  Morality  abounds  in  the  discourses  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
in  the  writings  of  the  apostles.  Jesus  Christ  was  a  preacher 
of  morality.  His  discourses  indeed  include  more  of  morality 
than  of  doctrine,  as  it  was  entirely  natural  that  they  should. 


GENEEAL  AND   PAKTICULAR  MORALITY.  81 

He  himself  was  Doctrine ;  the  grand  fact  with  which  all  oth- 
ers were  connected.  When  he  said,  "  I  am  he  who  should 
come,"  he  gave  rules  of  life.  Neither  are  the  apostles  want- 
ing in  morality,  even  in  a  morality  very  special. 

2.  It  is  an  excellent  schoolmaster  to  lead  us  to  Jesus 
Christ.  Let  us  not  despise  morality,  as  though  conversion 
were  everything.  We  must  be  led  to  conversion,  and  no- 
thing enforces  its  necessity  better  than  expounding  the  rules 
of  practical  life.  Has  not  God  himself  purposed  that  the 
law  should  serve  as  a  precursor  to  Christianity  ? 

3.  Morality  throws  much  light  on  doctrinal  teaching. 

4.  It  has  intimate  relations  to  individual  and  social  happi- 
ness. 

We  must  distinguish  as  to  subjects  of  moral  preaching : 

1.  Descriptive  morality,  which,  as  its  designation  indicates, 
employs  itself  in  studying  and  painting  the  phenomena  of 
moral  life,  after  the  manner  of  La  Bruyere  and  Rochefou- 
cauld ;  and  preceptive  morality,  which  is  occupied  with  rules 
of  conduct.  The  first  is  very  useful  for  the  pulpit ;  facts 
preach.  It  furnishes  material  and  a  ground  for  the  second  : 
preceptive  morality,  only,  furnishes  subjects  for  preaching. 

2.  General  and  particular  morality.  We  must  not  confine 
ourselves  to  the  first,  nor  borrow  from  the  second  subjects 
too  particular. 

3.  The  same  subjects,  with  different  designs,  according  to 
the  impressions  we  wish  to  make :  consolation,  encourage- 
ment, humiliation,  fear. 

4.  Finally,  general  and  particular  circumstances.  It  is 
useful  to  dwell  on  the  last,  provided  we  do  this  in  order  to 
connect  strongly  that  which  passes  with  that  which  does  not 
pass  away.  Let  us  recur  to  these  distinctions  when  they 
have  respect  to  preceptive  morality,  that  which  supplies  sub- 
jects for  preaching. 

General  duties  are  those  from  which  all  others  flow,  those 
4* 


82  SUBJECTS  OF  MORALITY. 

which  are  the  first  effluence  of  doctrinal  truths  towards 
practice,  duties  intermediate  between  doctrine  and  the  de- 
tails of  life,  the  duties  of  piety  and  Christian  methodology. 
These  duties  may  be  considered  as  essential  subject  matter 
for  preaching.  It  is  astonishing  to  see  the  affluence  of  gen- 
eral morality,  which  Christianity  offers  us.  The  preacher,  of 
course,  is  to  be  much  occupied  with  it ;  here,  as  in  all  things, 
he  is  to  enforce  principles.  The  task  here  has  become  easier 
from  the  fact,  that  the  field  of  general  morality  has  been 
much  more  cultivated,  and  is  consequently  more  accessible. 
But  this  consideration  itself  should  show  us  the  necessity  of 
not  confining  ourselves  to  general  facts.  The  preacher  must 
illustrate  the  power  of  Christianity,  which  opens  a  way  to 
itself  even  into  the  details  and  to  the  extreme  parts  of  life. 
We  must  see  it  thus  in  operation,  in  order  to  possess  a  thor- 
ough sense  of  its  excellence.  Error  or  half-error  is  not  in- 
finite ;  truth  alone  penetrates  to  the  very  bottom  of  things. 
It  is  moreover  very  necessary  to  combat  or  correct  received 
ideas  on  certain  points  of  morality.  The  gravest  errors  are 
accredited  even  in  the  bosom  of  the  most  cultivated  classes 
of  society.  And  in  descending  lower,  yet  worse  ones  will 
be  found.  The  Christian  preacher  should,  in  this  respect,  ex- 
tend aid  to  the  people,  give  them,  as  far  as  possible,  elevated 
ideas  of  morality,  and  direct  his  endeavors  most  particularly 
to  the  points  where  danger  lies. 

Still,  though  it  is  interesting  to  show  that  the  minutest 
details  of  life  are  under  the  protection  of  Christianity,  which 
has  a  hand  as  delicate  as  it  is  powerful ;  though  it  is  also  ne- 
cessary to  givejuster  ideas  on  parts  of  morality  which  have 
been  too  much  obscured ;  it  is  not  less  true  that  we  must 
avoid  subjects  which  are  too  particular.  If  you  separate  a 
very  small  drop  from  a  colored  or  sapid  liquid,  it  will  have 
in  its  isolation  neither  color  nor  taste.  At  the  last  ex- 
tremity of  a  branch,  it  is  difficult  to  retain  a  view  of  the 


SUBJECTS   OF   MOEALITY.  83 

stem.  Represent  to  yourself,  for  example,  sermons  on  neat- 
ness, politeness,  etc.  Some  topics  of  this  sort,  doubtless,  may 
be  approached,  but  it  must  be  done  incidentally  ;  they  should 
never  furnish  the  subject  of  a  sermon.  Particular  morality 
is  not  to  be  excluded,  but  such  details  of  it  may  have  their 
place  in  more  general  matters,  or  in  historical  subjects. 

There  are  some  subjects  closely  related  to  those  treated  by 
the  gospel,  which  it  has  not  even  mentioned,  as  suicide,  slavery, 
etc.  These  last,  so  far  from  deserving  to  be  excluded,  are 
sometimes  among  the  most  interesting  and  most  evangelical. 
The  silence  of  the  gospel  on  these  points  has  been  complained 
of,  but  we  ought  rather  to  be  pleased  that  it  has  not  said 
everything.  Besides  circumstantial  reasons,  we  must  con- 
sider in  general  that  the  gospel  would  put  us  under  the  ne- 
cessity of  finishing,  of  completing  things  for  ourselves. 
The  church  is  the  continued  reveal er  of  truth ;  it  can  add  no- 
thing to  principle,  but  as  developing,  applying,  inferring 
principle,  it  has  always  to  be  active,  always  advancing.  If 
the  gospel  had  said  everything  there  would  be  no  need  of 
preaching. 

Ought  morality  as  applicable  to  the  different  classes  of 
the  auditory,  to  parents,  to  children,  to  magisti-ates,  to  be 
preached  1  We  think  so ;  men  are  seldom  as  much  touched 
with  general  as  with  particular  truths.  We  must  take  every 
one  on  his  own  ground,  apply  the  truth  to  individuals. 
Saurin  has  a  sermon  on  the  Life  of  Courtiers.*  Let  us  not 
fear  that  that  which  is  specially  spoken  with  reference  to  cer- 
tain hearers,  will  touch  them  only.  What  does  not  concern 
us  directly  may  furnish  us  useful  instruction,  and  indirect 
lessons  sometimes  move  us  more  than  those  which  are  ad- 
dressed to  us  immediately.  It  is  moreover  well  for  us  to  be 
instructed  in  the  duties  of  a  position  we  are  never  to  occupy  ; 

*  Sauein,  tome  iii.,  nouvelle  edition. 


34  SERMONS  OF  REPREHENSION. 

we  thus  acquire  a  more  complete  knowledge  of  Christian 
morality  as  a  whole. 

Particular  sins,  can  be  the  sins  only  of  certain  persons. 
But,  as  the  virtues  are  sisters,  even  so  are  the  vices  brothers. 
There  is  a  consolidation  of  all  the  parts  of  evil,  as  there  is 
of  those  of  good.  We  must  show  our  hearer  that  if  he  is 
exempt  from  certain  vices  which  offend  him,  he  is  so  often 
from  the  effect  of  circumstances.  There  is  then  a  philosophy 
of  evil,  the  knowledge  of  which  is  inseparable  from  that  of 
Christianity.  And  as  it  is  not  enough  to  speak  of  duties 
without  connecting  them  with  one  duty,  neither  is  it  enough 
to  speak  of  sins  without  showing  their  organism.  The  be- 
liever should  know  not  only  life  but  all  life.  And  the  Bible 
here  is  not  sparing.  It  is  a  natural,  perfect  picture  of  element- 
ary human  life :  so  should  be  preaching. 

Cases  of  conscience,  like  the  morality  of  certain  positions 
and  the  sins  of  certain  classes,  are  to  be  approached  with 
caution,  under  the  sanction  of  general  and  manifest  utility  ; 
but  they  are  not  to  be  absolutely  excluded.  We  must  treat 
them  neither  in  special  discourses,  nor  even  in  one  discourse, 
separately  ;  but  show  them  as  absorbed  in  a  great  principle, 
which,  when  it  penetrates  the  soul,  explains  the  difficulties  of 
practical  life.  If  our  unity  with  our  Head  were  perfect.^  we 
should  be  strangers  to  cases  of  conscience.  As  the  fact  is, 
every  one  meets  with  them ;  some  of  which  are  very  diffi- 
cult, very  perplexing,  even  with  all  the  aid  of  prayer.  But 
in  general,  the  pulpit  is  not  the  place  for  casuistry,  the  multi- 
plied subtilities  of  which  have  subjected  the  gospel  to  reproach. 
One  who  is  tormented  with  scruples  of  this  sort,  should  have 
recourse  to  the  pastor  rather  than  the  preacher,  whose  task  is 
not  so  much  the  resolution  of  questions  of  this  kind  as  the 
dissipation  of  them.     Love  is  the  best  casuist. 

We  may  also  class  sermons  on  morality,  as  we  have  said 
before,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  impression  we  wish  to 


OCCASIONAL   SERMONS.  85 

produce.  Regarding  the  auditory  as  a  single  man,  having 
different  moral  wants,  we  exhort,  we  encourage,  we  console, 
we  rebuke  or  correct.  This  kind  of  preaching,  sermons  of 
reprehension,  (in  German,  Strafpredigten^)  which  were  for- 
merly much  more  frequent,  seems  now  to  be  confined  to  a 
single  day  of  the  year.*  It  is  useful  sometimes  to  preach 
in  this  spirit.  The  multitude  require  this  agitating  strain, 
and  the  searching  examinations  now  instituted,  are  of  great 
utility  to  the  believer  also;  but  there  are  perils  to  be 
avoided.  Age,  in  discourse  of  this  kind,  gives  an  authority 
that  does  not  belong  to  youth.  There  is,  however,  an  author- 
ity independent  of  age,  with  which  the  preacher,  as  such,  is 
invested.  It  is  to  young  Timothy,  that  the  wise,  discreet 
and  staid  Paul  has  said :  "  Them  that  sin  rebuke  before  all, 
that  others  also  may  fear."  (1  Timothy,  v.  20.)  "  Preach 
the  word :  be  instant  in  season,  out  of  season ;  reprove,  re- 
buke, exhort  with  all  suffering  and  doctrine."  (2  Timothy, 
iv.  2.)  Thus,  also,  he  said  to  Titus:  "These  things  speak, 
and  exhort  and  rebuke  with  all  authority."  (Titus,  ii.  15.) 
Besides,  truth  itself  rebukes,  and  it  is  important  that  the 
hearer  perceive  that  it  is  the  word  of  God  and  not  man,  that 
corrects  him.  "  For  the  word  of  God  is  quick  and  power- 
ful, and  sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword,  piercing  even  to 
the  soul  and  spirit,  the  joints  and  the  marrow,  and  is  the 
searcher  of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart."  (He- 
brews.^ iv.  12.) 

As  to  the  preaching  which  is  opposite  to  this,  the  laudatory 
kind,  we  may  find  examples  of  it  in  the  epistles  of  Saint 
Paul ;  but  it  is  scarcely  credible  that  it  is  applicable  to  the 
present  church — at  least  to  our  churches. 

Occasional  Sermons.  Connecting  general  truths  with  certain 
and  known  facts  is  doubtless  a  means  of  reanimating  general 

*  The  author  alludes  to  the  Fast-day,  which  is  annually  celebrated 
in  all  the  Swiss  churches. — [Editors,] 


86  POLITICAL   SEEMONS. 

truth ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  giving  to  particular  facts 
which  are  often  misjudged  or  unobserved,  the  form  of  instruc- 
tion.* If  the  preacher  may  say  God  instructs  us  by  events, 
(God  also  preaches  occasional  sermons,)  he  should  also  adopt 
the  absurd  inference  that  he  ought  never  to  speak  of  events. 
Undoubtedly,  indeed,  the  substance  of  preaching  is  not  that 
which  is  transient,  it  is  that  which  does  not  pass  away ;  but 
this  does  not  imply  that  we  deprive  it  of  this  character,  by 
using  it  to  connect  with  passing  events,  truths  which  do  not 
pass  away.  The  hearer  brings  into  the  temple  all  the  small 
money  of  his  particular  impressions,  that  it  may  be  convert- 
ed into  gold.  All  history,  with  the  Christian,  is  a  sermon ; 
a  sermon  may  become  history.  He  who  preaches  in  this 
manner,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  spirit  which  generalizes  the  par- 
ticular, which  eternizes  the  temporary,  may  discourse  of  cir- 
cumstances :  We  forbid  it  to  the  man  who  only  regards  it 
as  a  means  of  stimulating  our  dull  curiosity.  The  din  of  the 
world  should  die  away  at  the  gate  of  the  sanctuary,  as  in  the 
eternal  world,  "  time  is  no  longer."  The  temple  is  a  heaven  ; 
we  enter  for  a  moment  into  eternity,  to  come  back  into  time, 
and  of  the  events  which  pass  without,  nothing  whatever 
should  have  admission  here  but  the  truths  which  they 
bring. 

•  As  to  patriotic  and  political  sermons^  they  are  rather  to  be 
avoided,  and  yet  in  certain  grave  circumstances,  we  may  be 
obliged  to  touch  upon  such  subjects  in  the  pulpit.  On  one 
hand,  the  human  character  of  Christianity  puts  it  into  con- 
tact with  all  the  interests  of  life,  gives  it  a  word  to  speak 
in  all  circumstances ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  never  surrenders 
its  liberty  to  place  and  time,  and  with  extreme  reserve,  mixes 
itself  with  everything  that  does  not  bear  the  stamp  of  eter- 

*  See  the  sermon  of  Sauriu  sur   les  Malheurs  de  V Europe,   tome 
viii.,  new  edition. 


POLITICAL   SERMONS.  87 

nity.*  We  must  beware,  lest  we  inflame  on  this  hearth,  the 
passions  of  the  natural  man.  How  shall  we  now  speak  of 
politics  without  taking  a  side  1  We  must  remark,  also,  the 
utilitarianism  which  for  the  most  part  is  concealed  in  these 
subjects.f  It  is  better  for  the  preacher,  as  it  is  for  the  navi- 
gator, to  keep  himself  on  the  high  sea ;  it  is  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  coasts  that  shipwrecks  are  most  frequent.  J; 

I  believe,  indeed,  that  we  cannot  wholly  avoid  discoursing 
to  the  public  on  that  which  preoccupies  and  absorbs  it ;  but 
we  must  discourse  to  it  only  in  order  to  calm  or  moderate  it. 
Control  worldy  affairs  without  touching  them  ;  have  to  do 
with  them  only  to  impress  a  character  on  them  ;  show  them 
to  your  hearers  from  the  heights  of  heaven. 

See  the  Lord  and  his  apostles.  I  would  not  rigorously 
enforce  the  example  which  they  have  set  us  on  this  point. 
It  is,  nevertheless  remarkable,  that  loving  their  nation  as 
they  did,  they  should  have  approached  political  subjects  with 
so  much  reserve.  As  the  apostles  have  followed  their  mas- 
ter, they  have  left,  in  this  matter,  but  one  example. 

We  must  here  distinguish  the  preacher  from  the  religious 
writer,  who  may  be,  if  he  pleases,  a  journalist,  a  pamphleteer. 
The  preacher,  moreover,  is  at  the  same  time  one  who  pre- 
sides over  a  worshipping  assembly.  His  discourse  itself 
forms  part  of  the  worship.  This  does  not  allow  him,  so  it 
seems  to  me,  to  make  a  sermon  whatever  he  may  be  tempt- 
ed to  make  it.     We  have,  at  this  day,  so  many  other  means. 

*  The  manner  in  which  the  fast  is  observed,  shows  too  plainly  that 
the  nation  is  no  longer  the  church. 

f  Saurin  has  some  political  sermons,  but  they  are  in  general  re- 
strained within  just  limits.  See,  also,  the  sermon  of  Ancillon,  Sur 
le  Jubile  de  la  Monarchic. 

\  .  .  .  .  Nimium  premendo 
Litus  iniquum. 

Horace,  Odes,  lib.  ii.,  ode  x. 


HISTORICAL  SUBJECTS. 


§  3.  Historical  Subjects. 

What  we  have  said  concerning  oratorical  unity  does  not 
seem  to  lead  us  to  the  idea  of  historical  subjects.  If,  as  Quin- 
tilian  says,  we  write  in  order  to  narrate  and  not  to  prove, 
we  speak  in  order  to  prove  and  not  to  narrate.  But  in  the 
first  place,  the  first  business  of  a  preacher,  as  we  have  al- 
ready said,  is  to  teach  or  to  instruct ;  and  to  narrate  may  be 
a  form  of  instruction.  "  We  reason,"  I  have  somewhere  said, 
''  only  because  we  know  not  how  to  narrate."  Facts  well 
narrated  are  the  most  incisive,  and,  I  will  say,  the  most  de- 
cisive kind  of  instruction,  because  the  hearer  or  reader  now 
gives  instruction  to  himself  It  is  by  histories,  especially, 
that  God  wins  our  heart.  It  is  by  histories,  by  romances, 
that  ideas  are  diffused.  We  are  too  fond  of  reasoning,  which 
is  only  one  form  of  demonstration.  Moreover,  we  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  narration,  simply  and  purely  ;  the  recital  is 
but  the  basis,  the  support  of  the  instruction  which  is  to  fol- 
low. Narration  then  agrees  entirely  with  the  idea  of  oratori- 
cal discourse  ;  but  the  orator  does  not  narrate  after  the  man- 
ner of  a  historian. 

We  add,  that  nothing  so  interests  the  mass  of  hearers  as 
history.  We  have  truly  little  regard  to  the  wants  of  the 
multitude,  if  we  withhold  recitals  from  them.  God  has  been 
more  condescending. 

We  seek  to  transform  history  into  precept ;  Herder  would 
transform  each  precept  into  history.*  Both  are  good  ;  we 
must  accept  both.  Thus,  instead  of  saying  avarice,  let  us 
say  miser,  or,  better  still,  a  miser. 

Besides  sacred  history,  properly  so  called,  there  are  abun- 
dant materials  for  preaching,  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  in 

*Lehrsatz,  (precept.)  See  Herder  :  Brief e  das  Studium  der  TJieologie 
betreffend,  tome  ii.,  p.  36.     Edition  de  Carlsruhe,  1829. 


HISTOKICAL  SUBJECTS.  89 

which  the  history  of  the  old  and  new  Testament  has  its  con- 
tinuation ;  in  the  history  of  religion,  and  even  that  of  the 
world,  which  is,  as  it  were,  a  history  of  Providence.  What 
a  field,  too,  is  the  history  of  missions  and  Christian  labor,  as 
also  that  of  persecution  ?*  The  history  of  individuals,  bi' 
ographies  of  holy  men,  ought  also  to  have  place  in  the  pul- 
pit. 

Catholic  preachers  have  here  an  advantage  over  us,  as 
panegyrics  of^  the  Saints,  funeral  orations  have  regularly  a 
place  in  their  preaching,  f  These  sermons  give  us  all  the 
interest  which  general  truth  acquires  by  being  individualized. 
Why,  instead  of  taking  the  apostles'  words  for  our  texts, 
should  we  not  take  the  apostles  themselves  ?  Instead  of  re- 
garding their  words  in  their  objective  sense  simply,  why  not 
consider  them  in  a  subjective  point  of  view,  and  endeavor  to 
discern  in  them  the  beautiful  characteristics  of  the  primitive 
Church  "?  They  are  models  of  moral  excellence  which  it 
would  be  of  great  advantage  to  study.  And  as  the  work  of 
God  is  identical  with  itself,  let  us  pass  the  bounds  of  apos- 
tolic times,  and  from  the  immense  field  of  the  Church,  even 
of  the  Catholic  Church  before  the  Reformation,  and  since,  let 
us  reap  a  rich  harvest  of  the  finest  memorials. 

There  would  be  ingratitude  in  suppressing  the  lives  of 
our  believing  fathers.  Would  we  be  Christians,  and  yet 
have  but  vague  knowledge  of  Paul,  James  and  Peter ;  would 
we  ignore,  so  to  speak,  a  Luther,  or  a  Viret !  The  history  of 
the  work  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Church,  and  the  lives  of  holy 
men,  are  often  more  edifying  than  all  demonstrations.  Let 
us  not  fear  even  anecdotes.  Why  deprive  an  auditory  of  all 
this,  which  they  will  not  find  elsewhere  or  not  so  seasoned  ? 
Let  us  not  forget,  however,  while  we  freely  use  these  materi- 

*  See  my  Installation  Discourse,  (in  the  appendix.) 
\  See   BossuET,  Paneygrique  de  Vapotre  Saint  Paul  et   VOraison 
funehre  de  la  Princesse  palatine. 


90  CONTEMPLATION  OF  NATURE. 

als,  that  all  things  are  lawful  only  to  him  who  is  the  devoted 
servant  of  God,  and  in  proportion  as  he  is  his  devoted  ser- 
vant. Tlie  subjects  which  we  have  just  mentioned  allow  of 
very  sufficient  oratorical  unity,  and  meet  all  the  proprieties 
of  the  pulpit. 

§  4.  Subjects  drawn  from  the  contemplation  of  Nature. 

Subjects  of  this  class  have  also  been  abused,  and  have 
hence  fallen  into  discredit  like  that  which  has  happened  to 
morality.  There  has  been  a  surfeit  of  romantic  sermons,  and 
the  fault  of  the  preachers  has  been  transferred  to  their  favor- 
ite themes.  The  disgust  doubtless  is  excusable,  but  still  it  is 
unjust,  and  it  is  proper  that  the  subject,  we  speak  of,  should 
have  the  place  which  belongs  to  them.  The  God  of  nature 
is  put  in  opposition  to  the  God  of  the  gospel.  This,  before 
conversion  is  done  in  one  way,  after  it  in  another.  What 
we  have  said  of  the  truths  of  natural  religion  is  applicable 
here  ;  for  this  is  nothing  else.  Grace  is  not  opposed  to  na- 
ture :  because  the  heavens  do  not  declare  all  the  glory  of  God, 
it  does  not  follow  that  they  have  become  silent  on  this  import- 
ant subject.  Shall  we  say  that  their  speech  has  lost  all  value 
since  the  gospel  has  spoken  1  We  cannot  think  so.  No ; 
they  speak ;  let  us  receive  what  they  say.  It  is  true  that  na- 
ture also  speaks  of  the  fall  and  of  sin,  and  constrains  us  to 
desire  a  new  earth  and  a  new  heavens ;  but  it  is  useful  to 
speak  of  the  present  world,  even  in  this  particular,  and  to 
know  how  everything  is  calculated  for  the  religious  educa- 
tion of  man ! 

Moreover,  the  correspondence  of  the  physical  to  the  moral 
world  is  striking.     Nature  is  an  immense  parable. 

Only  let  us  remark,  that  what  is  allowed  to  the  pulpit  of 
this  kind  of  subject  matter,  is  neither  science  nor  poetry,  al- 
though science  in  its  general  results,  and  poetry  by  a  neces- 
sary consequence,  have  a  place  here.     The  contemplation  of 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  SUBJECTS.  91 

nature  should  be  essentially  religious.  It  is  aided  by  science, 
it  naturally  abounds  in  poetry ;  but  science  is  only  a  means 
and  poetry  an  accident.  It  is  to  be  desired  that  the  preacher 
should  not  speak  of  these  subjects  in  a  vague  and  uncertain 
manner,  but  with  the  precision  which  science  gives.  Won- 
ders which  are  hidden  are  not  the  least.* 

§  5.  Psychological  Subjects. 

That  psychology,  or  the  knowledge  of  the  elements,  the 
springs,  and  the  motives  of  the  physical  man,  is  necessary  ; 
in  a  word,  that  man  ought  to  be  known  by  the  preacher,  no 
one  doubts.  Some  in  contempt  of  this  study,  say  the 
Bible  is  sufficient,  forgetting  that  the  psychology  which 
it  includes,  invites  us  to  the  study  of  that  psychology  which 
is  a  flambeau  to  aid  us  in  looking  into  man,  and  that  it  is 
man  into  whom  we  are  to  look.  How  much  is  there  in 
Job  and  Ecclesiastes  on  the  mysteries  of  the  human  soul ! 
What  points  of  view  are  indicated  ! 

He  who  affirms  authoritatively,  "  man  is  this,  man  is  that," 
without  having  himself  seen  man,  accomplishes  little ;  as 
well  might  he  allege  that  there  is  no  other  motive  to  duty 
than  the  authority  of  the  Bible.  No  one  thinks  himself  re- 
duced to  that.  No  one  should  have  it  to  say,  "  If  the  preach- 
er knew  us  better,  he  would  not  speak  as  he  does."  A  preach- 
er who  speaks  of  man  without  having  studied  him,  will  fall 
into  grievous  errors,  and  will  want  authority.  He  should 
show  that  he  knows,  as  far  as  a  man  can  know,  "  of  what  we 
are  made."  (Psalm  iii.  14.)  But  in  general,  psychology  is 
better  adapted  to  supply  our  sermons  with  substance  than  with 
subjects  strictly  so  called  ;  in  either  case,  however,  it  should 
be  neither  scientific  nor  superficial.     The  psychology  of  the 

*  We  may  cite  as  examples  of  this  kind  of  subjects,  some  sermons  of 
Celerier  and  that  of  Manuel  on  Winter.  {Sermons,  tome  ii.,  see  part 
xviii.) 


92  PSYCHOLOGICAL  SUBJECTS. 

preacher  should  be  practical  and  popular.  A  purely  specula- 
tive, or  a  too  refined  psychology,  withdraws  the  hearer  from 
that  which  ought  wholly  to  preoccupy  him ;  it  supplies  his 
self-love  with  nutritious  food  ;*  it  creates  within  him  imag- 
inary impressions ;  besides,  it  is  an  element  but  little  orator- 
ical. 

Psychology,  as  we  here  understand  it.  regards  not  only 
individal  man,  but  social  man  also ;  there  is  a  social  psychol- 
ogy as  there  is  a  social  physiology.  It  forms  part  of  the  do- 
main which  we  have  just  opened  to  the  preacher.  Nothing 
is  more  natural  and  more  easy  than  to  connect  all  providen- 
tial institutions  with  the  idea  of  God  ;  to  show,  for  example, 
that  from  the  beginning  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  world,  God 
was  the  founder  of  society  and  civilization,  by  the  almost 
simultaneous  institution  of  the  family^  of  the  word^  of  law 
and  of  labor.  These  subjects,  which  are  very  much  neglected, 
and  which,  at  the  same  time,  give  a  sort  of  religious  shock 
to  the  hearers,  are  comprehended  in  the  preceding  one.  In 
truth,  institutions,  manners,  and  with  them,  industry,  arts,  civ* 

*  "A  very  refined  psychology,  which  busily  pries  into  all  the 
movements  of  the  soul,  stealing  into  its  secret  places,  extorting  its 
confessions,  ferreting,  if  we  may  so  speak,  into  its  darkest  corners, 
and  above  all,  making  it  conscious  of  all  its  evil,  and  multiplying, 
by  recounting  its  sorrows, — I  think  I  have  some  perception  of  its 
injurious  influence  on  all  the  soul's  great  interests.  So  far  as  re- 
generation necessarily  depends  on  self-knowledge,  the  difficulty  of 
this  work  is  perhaps  augmented  by  this  minuteness  of  observa- 
tion. It  turns  into  a  study,  a  matter  of  curiosity,  the  mighty  im- 
pressions which  would  bring  the  soul  into  the  sphere  of  light.  It 
stealthily  changes  the  sorrows  of  repentance  into  the  pleasures  of 
self-love  ;  the  reproaches  of  conscience  become  intellectual  discove- 
ries. We  do  not  enter  into,  we  rather  depart  from  ourselves. 
Amused  spectators  of  a  serious  evil,  we  cease  to  identify  ourselves 
with  it,  we  separate  ourselves  from  it,  we  withdraw  ourselves  from  it 
while  it  engages  our  attention."  (Vinet,  Mudes,  sur  la  Litterature 
FVanfaise  au  xix.  siecle.     Tome  iii.,  pp.  28-29.) 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  SUBJECTS.  93 

ilization,  multiform  developments,  flow  from  human  nature. 
All  truth  leads  to  truth.  Christ,  without  doubt,  is  the  centre 
of  all  truth ;  but  to  show  that  Christ  is  the  centre,  we  must 
speak  of  the  circle  and  of  the  most  remote  circumference. 
We  acknowledge,  nevertheless,  that  the  word  psychology, 
which  we  have  just  used,  cannot  be  understood,  without  doing 
a  sort  of  violence  to  the  secret  tie  which  unites  the  different 
parts  of  the  world,  and  the  different  elements  of  human  life. 
It  is  rather  philosophy,  in  which  these  are  embraced.  Phil- 
osophy in  religion,  is  an  instrument,  a  method ;  it  has  less  to 
do  with  a  given  philosophy,  a  philosophical  construction 
than  with  that  philosophical  spirit  by  which  we  class,  gen- 
eralize, abstract,  find  the  true  relation  of  things,  ascend 
from  appearance  to  reality,  from  phenomena  to  principle, 
comprehend  the  whole.  This  spirit  aids  us  in  discovering 
the  philosophy  of  religion,  that  is  to  say,  the  relation  to  one 
another  and  to  the  centre,  of  the  elements  which  compose  it, 
and  its  own  relations  to  the  world  and  to  life.  It  is  by  the 
aid  of  this  spirit,  that  we  seize  and  manifest  the  secret  har- 
mony which  exists  among  all  things ;  between  religion  and 
nature  or  human  life,  between  individual  and  social  existence, 
between  reality  and  art,  between  thought  and  action,  between 
liberty  and  order,  between  particular  and  general  affections,* 
between  instincts  and  duties,  between  present  interest  and 
thought  for  the  future.  But  all  this  enters  into  the  class  of 
apologetical  sermons,  and  philosophy  appears  here,  as  I  have 
said,  not  as  an  object  but  as  an  instrument. 

May  not  this  almost  boundless  extension  of  the  sphere  of 
preaching,  which  at  least  excludes  nothing,  be  an  occasion  of 
offence  ?     We  may  be  asked,  whether  Jesus  Christ  came  to 

*  Example :  "  Weep  ye  not  for  the  dead,  neither  bemoan  him : 
but  weep  sore  for  him  that  goeth  away ;  for  he  shall  return  no  more 
nor  see  his  native  country."     (Jeremiah,  xxii.  10.) 


94  INTEREST   OF    NOVELTY. 

discourse  on  all  sorts  of  subjects  1  No  :  Jesus  Christ  spoke 
of  a  good  part,  a  one  thing  needful,  which  we  must  choose, 
if  needs  be,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  There  is,  in  the 
evangelical  ministry,  a  character  of  urgency.  The  teaching 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  apostles,  is  vehement,  little  resem- 
bling the  tranquil  style  of  scientific  exposition.  "  Save  your- 
selves from  this  untoward  generation."  (Acts,  ii.  40.)  Save 
yourselves,  though  you  leave  your  treasures  and  remnants 
of  yourselves  ; — such  is  the  preaching  of  Jesus  Christ — such 
is  evangelical  preaching.  The  Christian  pulpit  is  not  an  aca- 
demical chair.  Men  will  not  so  regard  it.  Those  who  re- 
gard the  pastor  as  a  missionary  (as  they  have  reason  to  do), 
cannot  understand  our  moderation.  Still,  let  us  not  forget 
that  to  preach  is  to  instruct.  If  urging  the  sinner  to  flee  to 
the  foot  of  the  cross  were  all,  ther<e  might  be  some  excess 
even  in  preaching  the  gospel.  The  good  news  dwells  in 
many  subjects.  Alarms  to  the  conscience  are  spread  through 
the  gospel,  and  they  abound  about  us.  Doubtless  they  should 
have  a  place  virtually  in  every  discourse,  but  we  cannot  be 
excused,  on  this  account,  from  studying  the  various  aspects 
of  truth.  To  alarm  is  not  everything ;  it  is  indeed  a  small 
thing ;  we  must  move  the  heart,  and  in  order  to  this,  we 
must  instruct.  There  are  a  great  many  souls  that  we  can 
win  to  Christ  only  by  this  means.  Let  us  hasten  then  to 
instruct,  and  to  instruct  at  our  ease  ;  God  meanwhile  will  do 
his  own  work.  Instruction  is  a  matter,  not  of  taste,  or  of 
choice,  but  of  necessity.  An  essential  part  of  the  preacher's 
mission  is  a  course  of  instruction,  in  all  its  parts  tending  to 
edification. 

Moreover,  it  must  never  be  out  of  view,  that  a  great 
means  of  perpetuating  interest  is  novelty,  and  that  preaching 
to  retain  this  quality  must  be  incessantly  renewing  itself. 
We  desire  something  new,  and  generally  we  are  not  wrong 
in  this.     The  necessity  for  novelty  is  more  serious  than  we 


INTEREST    OF   NOVELTY.  95 

think,  and  the  most  earnest  hearer  is  far  from  being  a  stran- 
ger to  it.  Every  wise  preacher  "  will  bring  forth  from  his 
treasure  things  new  and  old."  (Matthew,  xiii.  52.)  That 
which  is  not  ancient  is  not  true ;  for  it  is  not  ours  to  make  a 
new  gospel.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  that  which  is  not  new, 
that  is  to  say,  suited  to  the  mental  state,  the  tendency  and 
necessities  of  each  epoch,  is  not  completely  true,  any  more 
than  the  other.  The  wonderful  flexibility  of  the  gospel,  its 
adaptation  to  the  forms  of  society,  to  characters,  positions, 
the  most  diverse  mental  tendencies,  is  no  feeble  indication  of 
its  divine  origin.  Shall  preaching  lose  its  resemblance  to  it  1 
It  is  too  often  like  itself  in  one  preacher  and  another,  in  one 
epoch  and  another.  There  are  few  things  the  force  of  which  is 
entirely  independent  of  form.  There  are  few  sermons  of  past 
centuries  which  we  could  use  well  without  a  transformation. 

There  is  then  a  legitimate  novelty — a  novelty  even  of 
subjects  ;  not  of  doctrines  but  of  themes.  By  this  means, 
art,  which  is  an  aflair  of  humanity,  renovates  itself ;  the 
gospel  is  unchangeable,  but  it  is  divine.  In  order  to  at-  * 
tain  the  novelty  of  which  we  speak,  genius  is  not  neces- 
sary, the  preacher  has  only  to  open  his  eyes  and  observe. 
Let  him  not  confine  himself  to  a  general  and  abstract  idea  of 
man,  but  let  him  study  the  men  who  are  before  him,  and  to 
whom  he  speaks.  If  he  will  but  take  this  pains,  he  will  be 
new.  The  study  is  a  difficult  one,  requiring  a  constant  atten- 
tion ;  one  in  which  zeal  will  sustain  and  direct  him,  but  from 
which  he  is  not  to  be  excused. 

After  having  thrown  down  barriers  we  raise  them  up  again ; 
that  is  to  say,  after  having  opened  to  preaching  in  general, 
five  or  even  six  departments,  we  reduce  them  for  the  sake 
of  the  young  preacher  to  two  :  Doctrine  and  Morality.  The  ^ 
three  latter  classes  of  subjects  suppose  the  preacher  to  have 
a  discernment,  a  tact,  which  only  experience  can  give  him. 
The  young  preacher   is  safer  within  narrower  limits,  which 


96  OF  THE  TEXT  IN  GENERAL. 

yet  are  not  so  narrow  as  to  cramp  his  zeal,  and  restrict  the 
usefulness  of  his  ministry,  and  into  which  also  he  may 
easily  introduce  ideas  and  facts  gathered  from  the  departments 
from  which  he  does  not  take  the  subjects  of  his  preaching. 


CHAPTER  in. 

OF  THE  TEXT. 

§  1.   Of  the  Text  in   General. 

In  treating  first  of  the  subject,  separate  from  the  text,  I 
have  decisively  shown  that  I  do  not  regard  the  use  of  a  text 
as  essential  to  pulpit  discourse.*  And  in  truth  it  is  not. 
What  gives  a  christian  character  to  a  sermon  is  not  the  use 
of  a  text,  but  the  spirit  of  the  preacher.  A  sermon  may  be 
christian,  edifying,  instructing,  without  containing  even  one 
passage  of  holy  scripture.  It  may  be  very  biblical  without 
a  text,  and  with  a  text  not  biblical  at  all.  A  passage  of 
scripture  has  a  thousand  times  served  as  a  passport  for  ideas 
which  were  not  in  it ;  and  we  have  seen  preachers  amusing 
themselves,  as  it  were,  by  prefixing  to  their  composition  very 
strong  biblical  texts,  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  of  emasculat- 
ing them.  We  have  witnessed  a  formal  immolation  of  the  Di- 
vine Word.  When  the  text  is  only  a  deceptive  signal,  when 
a  steeple  surmounts  a  play-house,  it  would  doubtless  be 
better  to  remove  the  signal  and  throw  down  the  steeple. 

Preachers  who  love  the  word  of  God,  will  not  fall  into 
this  abuse  ;  yet  even  with  respect  to  them  how  often  has 
the  text  been  the  occasion  of  a  painful  distortion  !  So 
far  are  the  text  and  the  subject  from  always  aiding  one 
another,  that  there  is  very  often  a  kind  of  war  between  them. 
*  Origin  of  texts:  See  Luke,  iv.,  16,  21. 


OF  THESES   AND  TEXTS,  97 

That  this  war  may  never  have  place,  two  things  are  neces- 
sary :  one,  that  every  text  contain  a  subject ;  the  other  that 
every  subject  be  sure  of  finding  a  text.  Neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  is  invariable. 

And  first,  every  text  does  not  contain  a  subject.  Avoid- 
ing the  homily,  which  is  now  out  of  question,  and  to  which 
we  shall  return,  the  question  here  relates  only  to  synthetic 
discourse,  in  which  everything  meets  in  one  point.  This  dis- 
course rests  upon  a  thesis.  We  must  then  search  for  a  text 
which  embraces  a  thesis.  Do  we  always  find  it  1  Remark 
that  the  thesis  results  from  an  abstraction,  is  a  truth  carefully 
detached  from  an  assemblage  of  truths,  as  a  member  from 
the  body  to  which  it  belongs,  upon  which  it  has  grown,  in 
which  it  forms  a  distinct  and  inseparable  whole,  a  unity. 
The  thesis  includes  in  itself  whatever  forms  it,  nothing  more, 
nothing  less ;  it  has  no  more  excrescences  than  defects ;  its 
extremities  are  connected  with  nothing  foreign  to  it,  it  has 
nothing  of  the  subjective,  the  historical,  the  accidental.  Con- 
ceived as  thesis,  thesis  by  birth,  it  proceeds  to  its  object  with- 
out sinuosities,  and  by  following  the  most  direct  line.  There 
are  doubtless  many  texts  in  the  Bible  which  will  meet 
these  conditions,  but  there  is  a  greater  number,  the  con- 
texture, the  form,  the  ground  even  of  which,  suppose  an  oc- 
casion, a  personal  emotion,  fortuitous  contact  with  other 
ideas,  in  a  word,  a  complication  foreign  to  thesis  strictly  so 
called,  and  which  regarded  by  itself  would  seem  arbitrary. 
Now,  it  is  often  in  a  passage  of  this  kind  that  the  truth  we 
are  to  treat  is  deposited  as  in  a  sort  of  gangne*  and 
the  thesis  then  rises  up  by  the  side  of  the  text,  throws  its 
roots  into  it  obliquely  as  in  the  crevice  of  a  rock ;  it  draws 
from  it  a  new  life,  some  new  interest,  far  more  than  it  is 

*  "The  earthy,  stony,  saline,  or  combustible  substance,  -which 
contains  the  ore  of  metals,  or  is  only  mingled  with  it  without  being 
chemically  combined,  is  called  the  gangue  or  matrix  of  the  ore." — Tr. 

5 


98  OF  THESES  AND  TEXTS. 

itself  substantially  drawn  from  it.  And  if  it  seeks  to  absorb 
the  whole  text,  it  becomes  surcharged,  it  is  out  of  proportion, 
it  is  thesis  no  longer. 

Ah,  well !  says  one,  let  us  abandon  the  theses,  and  embar- 
rassment will  disappear.  But  I  ask  whether  the  preacher 
in  the  course  of  his  career,  will  have  no  other  subjects  of 
preaching  presented  to  him  besides  passages  of  the  Bible  1 
Experience  also  is  a  book ;  experience  also  furnishes  texts. 
A  proposition  which  has  its  precise  expression  in  no  pass- 
age of  the  Bible,  is  suggested  altogether  by  the  preacher's 
own  mind,  under  the  influence  of  circumstances  or  medita- 
tion. In  compliance  with  a  usage  which  has  the  force  of  law, 
he  would  now  obtain  a  text  for  this  preconceived  subject, 
and  he  probably  finds  a  text  which  has  some  perceptible  rela- 
tion to  his  subject ;  but  does  he  always  find  a  text  which  ex- 
presses his  subject  1  We  cannot  think  so.  And  now  he  will 
do  one  of  two  things  ;  either  he  will  take  from  the  Bible  only 
what  exactly  suits  his  subject,  and  leave  the  rest ;  or  he  will 
make  the  text  the  mould  of  his  discourse.  Is  it  probable  now 
that  his  plan  will  be  a  truly  natural  one,  which,  having  been 
first  formed  in  his  mind  according  to  the  nature  of  things  and 
from  a  particular  point  of  view,  has  to  be  afterwards  formed 
anew  according  to  the  sinuosities  of  a  text  which  has  not  the 
form  of  his  thesis  or  of  any  thesis  1 

If  you  tell  him  to  abandon  the  form  of  his  thesis,  or  rather 
his  thesis  itself,  in  favor  of  the  text,  with  what  chains  would 
you  load  the  minister  of  the  Word  ?  And  know  you  not 
that  the  Bible  includes  many  more  truths  than  it  expresses  ? 
And  that  it  is  one  of  its  excellencies  that  it  suggests,  that 
it  excites,  a  multitude  of  ideas  which  it  includes  virtually, 
though  not  actually  ?  If  now  you  prefer  that  the  preacher 
should  appear  to  have  regard  only  to  the  text,  and  should  yet 
treat  his  proposition,  completely  and  independently,  just  as 
he  conceived  it,  that  perhaps  were  much  worse.     You  oblige 


DISADVANTAGES  OF  TEXTS.  99 

him  to  use  an  artifice  unworthy  of  the  pulpit ;  you  prefer 
that  under  the  appearance  of  inviolable  respect  for  the  letter 
of  the  Bible,  he  should  offer  it  violence,  he  should  wrest  it. 
Is  it  not  evident  that  he  would  show  more  respect  for  it,  by 
following  it  not  so  closely,  and  not,  while  pretending  to  bring 
his  conception  into  the  circle  of  the  divine  Word,  by  forcing 
that  Word  to  enter  into  the  circle  of  his  conception  1  To 
all  hearers  of  the  least  cultivation  or  sagacity,  this  is  a  feigned 
respect. 

When  we  are  told  that  preaching  ought  to  be  as  it  was  in 
its  origin  a  simple  explanation  and  application  of  the  inspired 
Word,  we  are  transferred  to  an  entirely  different  stage,  to 
another  question,  which  we  may  discuss  without  touching, 
without  compromitting  in  any  respect  the  ideas  we  have  just 
presented. 

Men  of  characters  very  different  and  of  very  opposite  doc- 
trines, unite  in  the  opinion  that  the  use  of  texts  is  an  abuse. 
According  to  Voltaire,  whom  we  must  not  hastily  refuse  to 
hear  (for  why  might  he  not  have  fallen  in  with  the  truth  on 
this  point,  which  is  not  precisely  a  religious  question  I*):  "  It 
were  to  be  wished  that  Bourdaloue  in  banishing  from  the 
pulpit  the  bad  taste  which  disgraced  it,  had  also  banished  the 
custom  of  preaching  on  a  text.  Indeed,  to  speak  long  on  a 
quotation  of  a  line  or  two,  to  exhaust  oneself  in  subjecting  a 
whole  discourse  to  the  control  of  this  line,  seems  a  trifling 
labor,  little  worthy  of  the  dignity  of  the  ministry.  The 
text  becomes  a  sort  of  motto,  or  rather  enigma,  which  the 
discourse  develops."f 

We  must  shake  off  the  yoke  of  custom  which  at  length 
becomes  a  second  nature ;  we  must  place  ourselves  at  the 
stand-point  of  a  man  who  has  never  heard  preaching,  who 
knows  the  end  without  knowing  the  usages  of  preaching,  and 

*  Fas  est  ab  hoste  doceri.     Ovid.     Met. 
f  Voltaire  Siecle  de  Louis  XIV. 


100  DISADVANTAGES  OF  TEXTS. 

think  how  he  would  feel  to  see  an  entire  branch  of  oratory- 
subjected  to  this  rule,  and  each  discourse  developing  not  an 
idea  of  the  preacher  or  an  idea  which  has  become  his  own, 
but  a  word  taken  from  the  midst  of  a  foreign  discourse  ;  I 
think  I  may  say,  he  would  at  least  be  astonished.  And 
doubtless  he  would  not  rest  in  simple  astonishment  if  the 
discourse  on  which  he  had  fallen  were  a  discourse  of  Bourda- 
loue's,  who  seems  like  other  orators  of  his  communion,  to 
have  taken  a  text  only  to  show  how  skilfully  he  could  dis- 
embarrass himself  of  it :  And  if  the  preacher  could  not  have 
done  otherwise,  if  the  text  were  imposed  upon  him,  the 
blame  in  that  case  has  a  different  direction,  but  it  has  its 
mark ;  the  preacher  is  innocent  but  the  institution  is  not. 
The  astonishment  would  not  be  less,  if,  instead  of  a  sermon 
of  Bourdaloue,  it  should  be  one  of  Reinhard's  :  the  one  disen- 
cumbers himself  of  his  text,  the  other  tortures  it  to  make  it 
speak  what  it  has  not  spoken,  and  what  it  is  not  willing  to 
speak.  But  if  this  stranger,  this  new-comer  should  hear  one 
of  those  sermons,  of  which  the  reformed  pulpit  offers  so 
many  examples,  in  which  the  text  is  not  a  pretext,  in  which 
the  text  is  not  a  defile  which  one  traverses  with  effort,  but 
truly  a  text,  a  divine  thought,  the  meaning  of  which  is  to  be 
penetrated,  the  extent  to  be  measured,  the  parts  to  be  un- 
folded, the  consequences  to  be  deduced,  would  he  be  equally 
astonished'?  I  think  not.  He  would,  perhaps,  make  no 
reflection  on  the  usage  ;  and  if  he  should  make  one,  it  would 
very  probably  be  favorable  to  the  usage. 

At  length,  however,  and  in  proportion  as  he  enters  into 
the  spirit  of  preaching  and  of  the  ministry,  he  may  also  come 
to  doubt  the  legitimacy  of  the  usage,  at  least  when  regard- 
ed absolutely.  He  may  make  the  reflections,  which  we  have 
presented,  on  the  incompatibility  of  the  text  with  the  sub- 
ject, taking  each  of  them  in  the  rigor  of  its  notion.  He 
may  say  with  Glaus  Harms  :  "  May  we  be  permitted  to  ask, 


DISADVANTAGES  OF  TEXTS.  101 

if  preaching  on  texts  is  founded  as  much  in  reason  as  on  cus- 
tom ?  May  we  venture  to  express  the  opinion  that  the  theme 
and  the  text  approach  each  other  only  in  order  to  their  mu- 
tual exclusion  of  each  other  1  That  a  theme  does  not  need  a 
text,  and  that  a  text  does  not  need  a  theme  1  May  we  dare 
even  to  say,  that  the  usage  of  preaching  from  a  text  has  done 
injury,  not  only  to  the  perfection  of  preaching  as  an  art,  but 
to  Christian  knowledge  also,  and  what  is  yet  more  serious,  to 
the  Christian  life."* 

There  are  two  things  in  this  passage,  one  is  a  strictly  true 
assertion  respecting  the  forced  alliance  of  a  subject  or  a 
theme  conceived  beforehand,  with  a  text  conceived  and 
committed  to  writing  by  another.  We  have  already  ad- 
mitted the  force  of  this  objection  ;  the  difficulty  cannot 
be  denied  ;  we  shall  see,  presently,  if  it  cannot  be  sur- 
mounted. The  second  part  of  the  passage  quoted  is  a  sim- 
ple remark  of  which  no  proof  is  given,  concerning  the  in- 
jury which  this  usage  may  have  done  to  preaching  itself, 
to  Christian  knowledge,  to  Christian  life.  I  do  not  think 
it  can  be  absolutely  repelled.  The  manner  in  which  the 
usage  has  been  observed,  may,  to  a  certain  extent,  have  pro- 
duced these  effects.  If  the  continuous  interpretation  of  the 
texts  of  the  Bible  had -been  the  exclusive  form  of  preaching, 
it  would  not  have  had  all  these  inconveniences  ;  but  the  use 
of  isolated  texts  connected  with  the  necessity  of  never  preach- 
ing without  a  text,  has,  certainly,  in  a  rigorous  and  absolute 
view,  something  false,  something  serious,  which  narrows  the 
range,  which   limits  thought,   which  puts  restraint   on  the 

*  Harms,  Fastoraltheologie,  tome  i.,  p.  65.  See,  also,  tome  ii.,  p.  153. 
These  opinions  of  Harms  were  discussed  by  Tholuck,  Theologischer 
Anzeiger,  in  the  year  1838, 1!^os.  63  and  64.  See  on  the  same  subject, 
Ko-E&TER, Lehrbuch,  p.  194,  §  35,  deV H(y)niletitque,a.n6.  Bx]ffei,d, Uber  das 
Wescn  and  den  Beruf  dan  evangclisch-christlichen  Geistlichen,  tome  i., 
p.  So. 


102  ^ADVANTAGES  OF   TEXTS. 

preacher's  individuality.  Considering  this  method  as  em- 
ployed without  qualification,  without  allowance,  I  think  we 
ought  to  be  on  our  guard  in  respect  to  it. 

It  remains  for  us  now  to  see  whether  the  opposite  method, 
or  simply  the  liberty  of  preaching  without  a  text,  would  not 
have  had  yet  more  inconveniences,  whether  the  abuses  which 
would  have  resulted  from  this,  might  not  have  been  more 
serious.  We  see  the  abuses  to  which  the  prevalent  method 
has  given  place  ;  and  we  do  not  see  those  which  the  other 
method  might  have  produced  ;  but  it  is  not  very  difficult  to 
represent  them  to  ourselves,  and  it  is  not  more  difficult  to 
understand  that  a  usage  so  constant  and  so  universal  is  not 
without  some  solid  foundation,  and  was  not,  in  its  principle 
and  simplicity,  an  abuse  or  an  error.  It  yet  remains  to  be 
seen  whether  the  use  of  texts  is  not  susceptible  of  modifica- 
tions, which  without  making  it  a  mere  contemptible  formality, 
would  purify  it  of  whatever  there  may  be  in  it  that  is  false, 
servile,  irrational. 

I  will,  in  conclusion,  examine  this  point.  But  first,  taking 
this  method  in  general,  without  regard  to  the  application 
which  it  may  have  received,  and  the  abuse  which  may  have 
been  made  of  it,  I  make  the  following  observations  : 

In  the  first  place,  this  method  has  received  from  time  and 
universal  consent  a  sacredness  which  gives  it  such  force  that 
only  time  which,  introduced,  can  abolish  it,  and  perhaps 
time  itself  cannot  abolish  it  without  producing  a  convulsion 
in  the  Church. 

In  the  second  place,  this  method,  externally  and  formally  at 
least,  well  represents  the  idea,  that  the  preacher  is  the  minister 
of  the  Word  of  God.     It  recalls  this  to  others  and  himself. 

Thirdly,  it  has  real  advantages.  The  first  is,  the  moral 
advantage  to  the  preacher  of  having  his  discourse  connected 
with  a  passage  of  the  Bible.  The  second  is,  the  impressions 
of  respect  which  the  enunciation  of  the  sacred  word  makes 


ADVANTAGES  OF  TEXTS.  103 

on  the  auditors,  at  the  beginning  of  the  sermon.  The  third 
is,  that  generally  a  text  well  comprehended  and  closely  fol- 
lowed will  produce  a  discourse  more  special,  striking,  spirit- 
ed than  one  founded  on  an  abstract  conception — a  discourse 
thoroughly  original.  Finally,  to  the  majority  of  preachers 
this  method  is  better  suited  than  the  other,  to  multiply  sub- 
jects. 

Ammon  has  very  well  summed  up  the  advantages  of  using 
texts  in  the  following  words  :  "  The  Bible  is  the  source  of 
our  external  knowledge  of  religion.  It  is,  especially  in  its 
historical  parts,  very  easy  to  be  understood,  very  interesting, 
and  very  dramatic.  It  supplies  abundant  materials  of  the 
greatest  value,  for  the  most  various  expositions  in  theology, 
religion,  and  practical  wisdom.  Its  passages  are  very  easily 
remembered,  on  account  of  their  simple  and  striking  language; 
they  thus  facilitate  the  particular  reproduction  of  truths  which 
have  been  expounded.  The  subjective  divinity  of  its  origin 
gives  the  objective  divinity  of  its  contents  an  authority* 
which  strengthens  the  religious  convictions  of  cultivated  men, 
and  which  holds  the  place  of  proof  with  the  unlettered. "f 

Claus  Harms  himself,  after  making  the  objections  which  we 
have  mentioned  against  the  custom  of  preaching  on  a  text,  is 
still  in  favor  of  retaining  this  method  ;J;  he  adheres  to  it  from 
regard  to  moral  utility,  and  though  he  admits  of  sermons 
without  texts,  he  admits  of  them  as  exceptions. 

If  preaching  on  texts  presents  theoretic  difficulties,  they 
certainly  may  be  much  diminished  in  practice.  We  shall 
make  ourselves  understood  by  distinguishing  three  cases  : 

The  first,  which  certainly  does  present  itself,  and  which  in- 
deed is  not  so  uncommon,  is  that  in  which  our  text  is  one 

*  In  German,  Eine  Glauhwurdigkeit, 

f  Ammon,  Handhitch  der  Kanzelberedsamkeit,  p.  88  of  the  third  edi- 
tion. 

^  Haems,  Pastoral  theologie,  tome  i.,  p.  83. 


104  ADVANTAGES  OF  TEXTS. 

with  our  subject.  The  one  exactly  covering  the  other,  in  this 
case  there  is  no  difficulty  to  be  diminished,  no  obstacle  to  be 
removed. 

Again,  when  a  preconceived  subject  has  no  precise  formu- 
la in  a  passage  of  Scripture.  If,  notwithstanding  this,  the 
subject  has  a  christian  character,  it  may  be  supported  by  a 
text  of  the  Bible,  the  meaning  of  which  has  the  relation  to 
the  subject  of  the  species  to  the  genus,  or  the  genus  to  the 
species  ;  or  which  expresses  the  idea  of  the  subject  by  com- 
plicating it  with  certain  accessory  or  adventitious  circum- 
stances, or  which  encases  the  idea  in  an  individual  fact ; — in 
brief,  a  text  with  which,  without  witticism  or  subtilty,  we 
may  connect  the  subject  of  our  discourse.  We  abstract  that 
which  is  accessory  or  contingent,  or  we  speak  of  it  and  dis- 
miss it.  The  text,  in  such  a  case,  will  at  least  be  the  gener- 
al announcement  or  starting  point  of  the  truth  which  we 
wish  to  establish.  It  adorns,  it  solemnizes  the  preacher's  dis- 
course. Tliere  is  nothing  in  this  inconsistent  with  that  frank- 
ness which  is  the  first  essential  of  pulpit  dignity.  The  text 
is  not  a  pretext ;  the  sermon  is  scriptural.  Such  a  manner 
of  connecting  ourselves  with  the  Bible,  is  surely  preferable 
to  that  imaginary  respect  which  does  violence  to  the  text  or 
the  thought ;  and  it  justifies  itself  by  the  necessity,  which 
circumstances  may  create,  of  preaching  on  a  subject  which 
has  no  exact  and  adequate  expression  in  a  passage  of  Scrip- 
ture.* 

Again,  finally,  when  we  have  before  us  from  the  first  and 
purely,  a  text.    This,  I  remark,  is  the  most  frequent  case,  the 

*  As  would  be  the  case  with  a  preacher  in  the  United  States,  who 
should  have  to  preach  on  slavery  ;  of  him  also  who  should  have  to 
preach  on  the  necessity  of  reforming  individuals  through  the  refor- 
mation of  society  ;  or  on  order  in  domestic  affairs  ;  or  with  the  pur- 
pose of  justifying  mysteries  in  religion  ;  or  on  signs  as  a  means  of 
determination  ;  or  on  progress  in  understanding  the  ways  of  God. 


ADVANTAGES  OF  TEXTS.  105 

most  natural  position  of  the  preacher ;  one  which,  by  the  force 
of  things,  as  it  were,  by  a  habit  which  a  mind  incessantly  occu- 
pied with  the  Bible  naturally  forms,  produces  a  harmony,  an 
interfusion  between  the  text  and  the  subject,  of  which  we  can- 
not conceive  a  priori.  We  are  then  at  the  service  of  our  text, 
not  however  in  the  spirit  of  servility,  of  puerile  minuteness 
and  exegesis ;  it  is  to  us,  as  it  were,  a  mystic  fruit,  the  entire 
juice  of  which  we  would  express,  the  entire  perfume  would 
preserve ;  we  seriously  develop  not  the  precise  words  and 
the  accidental  details  of  it,  but  its  ideas.  Nevertheless,  as 
the  idea  and  the  form  are  always  united,  and  nowhere  so 
closely  as  in  the  Bible,  the  discourse  takes  the  form  of  the 
text,  and  with  what  advantage  I  have  already  said.  It  has 
nothing  abstract.  It  is  concrete,  like  a  fact,  a  history.  The 
assertion  of  the  sacred  author,  is  as  a  fact  of  which  we  give 
an  account. 

We  would  gladly  make  this  method  the  rule,  as,  in  truth, 
the  case  we  have  supposed  is  the  rule.  But  then,  if  we  en- 
ter fully  into  this  view,  we  shall  abound  in-  the  spirit  of  this 
procedure,  which  sees  in  each  assertion  of  the  sacred  author, 
not  only  an  assertion,  but  a  fact ;  I  mean  a  fact  of  the  author, 
a  fact  which  has  not  twice  had  place  in  the  same  manner. 
We  start  with  the  idea  that  every  text  is  unique  and  individ- 
ual, so  to  speak  ;  we  start  with  the  idea,  that  in  a  book,  the 
authors  of  which  have  not  spoken  merely  for  the  sake  of 
speakmg,  there  are  as  many  thoughts  as  words,  that  two 
forms  claim  two  ideas.  La  Bruyere  has  justly  said,  that 
among  all  the  different  expressions  which  can  render  a 
thought,  only  one  is  good.*  For  the  same  reason,  of  two 
meanings  which  we  may  give  a  text,  only  one  of  them  is 
good.  A  word  may  serve  to  individualize  a  text.  For  ex- 
ample :  "  Forget  not  to  do  good."  (Hebrews,  xiii.  16.)  It  is 
impoverishing  ourselves  and  preferring  vagueness,  to  follow  a 
*  La  Bruyere,  Les  Caract^res,  chap.  i.  Des  Ovmragea  de  Vesprit. 
5* 


106  RULES  FOR  CHOOSING  TEXTS. 

different  mode.  It  is  to  rob  ourselves  of  a  great  part  of  the 
subjects  which  are  indicated  in  the  Bible.  It  is  to  forego  in 
many  cases  that  harmony  between  the  text  and  the  subject 
of  which  we  have  said  so  much.  For  it  is  often  by  means 
of  a  word,  though  a  characteristic  word,  that  a  text  may  be- 
come the  exact  or  approximate  expression  of  the  subject  we 
had  in  view  before  seeking  or  meeting  with  our  text.  Very 
often,  in  order  to  produce  this  harmony,  the  true  way  is  not 
to  abstract  this  or  that  feature  of  the  text,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  take  accomit  of  it. 

§  2.  Rules  for  choosing  Texts. 

I. 

After  explaining  these  points,  we  propound  the  rules 
which  should  guide  us  in  choosing  texts. 

The  first  is  as  precise  as  it  is  absolute.  The  text  ought  to 
be  drawn  from  the  word  of  God.  "  If  any  man  speak,  let 
him  speak  according  to  the  oracles  of  God."     (1  Peter,  iv. 

11.) 

We  may  appear  to  be  saying  an  idle  thing,  but  we  have 
not  said,  "  The  text  ought  to  be  taken  from  the  Bible." 
This  would  be  idle.  But  this  Bible,  translated  by  Osterwald, 
Martin,  or  some  other,  is  the  word  of  God  only  under  re- 
striction. 

1.  After  what  we  have  just  said,  texts  from  the  apocryphal 
books  are  not  to  be  chosen. 

2.  May  we  take  for  a  text  a  passage  which  criticism  rejects 
or  renders  considerably  doubtful  %  There  are  passages  of  this 
character  which  are  very  beautiful,  very  evangelical,  but  if  they 
have  evidently  been  interpolated,  or  are  strongly  suspected, 
they  must  be  excluded.  The  passages  of  this  class  are  few. 
John  viii.  1-11,  and  1  John,  v.  7 — may  be  taken  as  examples. 

3.  May  we  take  for  a  text  a  defective  translation  of  the 


EULES  FOR  CHOOSING  TEXTS.  107 

Bible  1  No  ;  otherwise  we  should  exalt  translators  to  the 
rank  of  prophets,  inspired  men.  Our  texts  ought  to  be 
taken  from  the  original,  and  if  the  version  in  use  has  changed 
the  sense,  we  must  correct  it.  We  may  create  some  sur- 
prise by  doing  so,  if  the  passage  is  very  well  known  ;  but 
the  scandal  is  given  already  by  the  diversity  of  the  transla- 
tions in  use.  It  is  then,  we  repeat,  very  important  to  study 
the  text  in  the  original.  If  we  doubt,  we  must  abstain,  and 
in  all  cases  use  prudence  ;  but  while  we  are  not  to  introduce 
into  the  pulpit  discussions  which  should  have  no  place  there, 
we  shall  be  obliged  to  establish  the  true  sense,  in  the  exordi- 
um of  the  discourse,  for  example,  or  in  approaching  the  sub- 
ject. We  will  cite  here  some  examples  of  varying  or  defec- 
tive versions. 

Isaiah,  lii.  15,  "  He  shall  make  the  blood  of  many  na- 
tions to  gush  forth,"  ( Osterwald,)  or,  "  he  shall  bedew,  he 
shall  sprinkle,"  (English  version,)  instead  of  "  he  shall  startle 
many  people."* 

Philippians,  ii.  6,  "He  thought  it  no  robbery  to  be 
equal  with  God,"  (  Osterwald,)  instead  of  "  He  did  not  glory 
in,"  or,  "  was  not  vain  of  it." 

Romans,  ix.  28,  "The  Lord  is  about  to  make  a  great 
diminution  in  the  earth,"  ( Osterwald,)  instead  of  "  a  short 
work,"  (^Martin,  English  version,)  or,  "  a  work  which  he  has 
determined  on."f 

Romans,  xii.  6,  (comp.  ver.  3)  is  often  translated  :  "  Ac 
cording  to  the  analogy  of  faith."  Osterwald  rightly  trans 
lates  :  "  According  to  the  measure  of  faith." 

Romans,  xiv.  5,  "  Let  each  one  be  abundant  in  his  un 
derstanding."  (Fcnelon.)     This  is  an  erroneous  translation. 

*  "Also  wird  er  viele  Voelker  in  freudiges  Erstaunen  setzen. — De 
Wette. 

f  'EvvTe/ivu,  decerno,  definio,  resoudre.  Die  beschlossene  Sache  wird 
der  Herr  thun  auf  Erden. — ^De  "Wette. 


108  RULES   FOR  CHOOSING  TEXTS. 

Osterwald  says  :  "  Let  every  one  act  according  to  a  full  per- 
suasion in  his  own  mind."  The  text  is  strictly,  "  Let  each 
one  be  persuaded  in  his  mind." 

Romans,  xiv.  23,  "  Whatever  is  not  done  with  faith  is  a 
sin,"  (Osterwald,)  instead  of,"  Whatever  is  not  of  faith  is  sin." 

John,  i.  9,  Martin  translates,  "  The  light  which  enlighteneth 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world."  It  refers,  according 
to  this,  to  conscience,  the  light  which  enlighteneth  every  man. 
It  should  be  translated,  "  The  true  light  which  enlighteneth 
all  men  is  come  into  the  world." 

Psalm  xix.  13,  Et  ah  alienis,  (from  the  sins  of  others,)  ac- 
cording to  the  vulgate  and  M.  de  Lamennais,*  instead  of  "  ab- 
solve me  from  secret  faults,"  Osterwald  says :  "  Cleanse  thou 
me."  (Proverbs,  xviii.  3.)  This  passage,  which  is  used  as  an 
epigraph  to  the  book  of  M.  de  Lamennais,  Sur  Vindifference^ 
is  translated  in  the  vulgate  by  the  words,  "  Impius  quum  in 
profundum  venerit  contemnity  (The  ungodly  man  is  a  de- 
spiser,  even  when  he  has  fallen  to  the  bottom  of  the  abyss.") 
Osterwald  translates,  "  When  the  wicked  cometh,  contempt 
also  cometh,  and  reproach  with  ignominy."! 

"  It  is  truly  unpardonable,"  says  De  Wette,  "  that  many 
preachers  confine  themselves  implicitly  to  the  version  of  Lu- 
ther, so  often  erroneous,  especially  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
that  they  preach  thus  upon  a  supposed  biblical  thought  to  be 
nowhere  found  in  the  original  text.  A  reader  of  my  trans- 
lation expressed  to  me  one  day  his  astonishment  at  not  find- 
ing a  text  there  on  which  he  had  just  heard  a  very  edifying 
sermon.  He  had  reference  to  the  passage  of  Isaiah,  xxviii. 
19 :  'TrialsJ  teach  us  to  take  heed  to  the  word.'  The  orig- 
inal text  here,  we  know,  includes  no  thought  that  has  the 

*  Imitation  de  Jesus  Christ,  book  iii.,  chap.  14.     Reflections. 
•}•  Kommt  der  Frevler  kommt  auch  Verachtung,  und  mit  Schande 
Schmach — De  "Wette. 

X  In  German,  Die  Anfechtung. 


RULES  FOR  CHOOSING  TEXTS.  109 

least  analogy  to  this."*  De  Wette  himself  translates :  "  It 
is  a  terror  even  to  hear  the  report."  Osterwald  says :  "  After 
the  report  shall  be  heard,  there  will  be  only  trouble."  De 
Wette  corrects  Luther  also,  on  John,  xiv.,  which  he  translates : 
"  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled :  trust  in  God ;  trust  also 
in  me ;"  while  in  Luther,  it  is :  "  If  you  believe  in  God,  you 
believe  also  in  me." 

4.  May  we  take  for  a  text  a  word  of  man  contained  in  the 
Word  of  God  ?  Yes,  when  this  word  is  presented  for  a  fact. 
The  fact  is  often  of  very  great  importance,  and  very  worthy 
to  be  searched  into  by  preaching,  even  though  this  word  may 
have  come  from  the  mouth  of  an  adversary  of  the  truth. 
God  has  thought  it  wise  to  preserve  it  in  the  book  of  his  ora- 
cles. If  "  wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children,"  (Luke,  vii. 
35,)  it  is  also  of  some  of  her  adversaries.  See  some  pas- 
sages of  the   class  which  we  have  in  view : 

Mark,  ii.  7,  "  Who  can  forgive  sin  but  God  only  ?" 

Mark,  ix.  24,  "  Lord  I  believe,  help  thou  my  unbelief." 

Luke,  ix.  1,  "  Lord  teach  us  to  pray." 

John,  vii.  46,  "  The  officers  answered,  never  man  spoke 
like  this  man." 

Luke,  vii.  19,  "  Art  thou  he  that  should  come,  or  look  we 
for  another  1 

Luke,  xxiii.  47,  "  The  Centurion  seeing  that  which  came 
to  pass,  glorified  God,  saying,  Truly  this  was  a  righteous 
man." 

Luke,  xxiv.  32,  "  Did  not  our  heart  burn  within  us,  when 
he  talked  to  us  by  the  way,  and  explained  to  us  the  Scrip- 
tures." 

John,  vi.  68,  "  Lord  to  whom  shall  we  go  1  Thou  hast  the 
words  of  eternal  life." 

Acts,  V.  38-39,  "  And  now  I  say  unto  you.  Refrain  from 
these  men,  and  let  them  alone ;  for  if  this  purpose  or  this 
*  De  "Wette.     Preface  to  his  translation  of  the  Bible. 


110  EXTEENAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT. 

work  be  of  men,  it  will  destroy  itself;  but  if  it  be  of  God, 
beware  lest  you  be  found  fighting  even  against  God." 

Romans,  xv.  4,  "  These  things  are  written  for  our  learn- 
ing." 

Genesis,  xlvii.  9,  "  The  days  of  the  years  of  my  pilgrim- 
age are  a  hundred  and  thirty  years,  few  and  evil  have  been 
the  days  of  the  years  of  my  life."  This  is  the  complaint  of 
Jacob  and  of  humanity,  which  we  must  remember.  Our 
sighs  are  often  prophesies. 

'f  II. 

"We  have  not  yet  left  the  threshold  of  the  question  ;  we 
must  penetrate  further.  All  the  rules  which  we  have  just 
given  are  not  a  sufficient  guaranty ;  we  must  add  that  our 
text  is  drawn  from  the  word  of  God,  only  when  we  give  it 
the  sense  which  it  has  in  the  intention  of  the  sacred  author. 
We  are  not  concerned  with  the  work  of  the  translator,  al- 
though we  have  supposed  that  every  preacher  is  also  a  trans- 
lator :  we  consider  only  the  preacher.  To  arrive  at  a  perfect 
knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  the  passage,  we  must  examine 
first  the  text  itself  then  the  context. 

1.  The  text  itself.  We  have  to  settle  in  each  passage,  the 
verbal  or  external  sense,  and  the  internal  sense.  The  first  is 
that  which  is  commonly  called  the  signification,  the  idea 
which  signs  convey  immediately  to  the  mind  independently  of 
every  ulterior  consideration,  every  consideration  foreign  to 
the  philological  elements  of  which  the  passage  is  composed. 
The  second  is  the  idea,  which,  by  means  of  the  external 
sense,  the  author  of  the  passage  would  communicate  to  the 
mind  of  the  reader ;  so  that  the  first  idea  regards  the  second 
only  as  the  words  regarded  the  first.  The  key  to  the  first 
meaning  is  the  knowledge  of  words,  the  key  to  the  second  is 
the  knowledge  of  things. 

In  order  to  make  no  mistake  as  to  the  sense  we  call  ex- 


EXTERNAL  SENSE   OF  THE  TEXT.  Ill 

temal,  we  must  have  a  precise  idea  of  the  language  of  the 
authors ;  I  mean  of  the  import  of  the  signs  and  forms  of  this 
language,  when  compared  with  correspondent  signs  and 
forms  in  our  own  language.  In  other  words,  we  must  know 
how  to  appreciate  the  principal  terms  which  occur  most  fre- 
quently, and  which  enter  into  the  most  important  passages. 
In  the  language  of  the  Bible  there  is  a  certain  number  of 
words  which  we  may  call  capital,  the  meaning  of  which 
exactly  seized,  becomes  the  key  of  the  Bible.  If  we  confine 
ourselves  purely  and  simply  to  the  usual  signification  of  the 
terms  which  the  translator  uses  in  rendering  such  words  into 
our  language,  we  are  in  great  danger  of  committing  serious 
errors.  Thus,  as  to  the  words  /ear,  fiesh,  soul,  heart,  faith, 
righteousness,  understanding,  foolish,  light,  just,  good  man, 
wicked,  virtue.  (2  Peter,  1,  5.)  The  translator  has  translat- 
ed for  you  the  words ;  you  must  translate  the  ideas  for  your- 
selves.*    The  preacher,  or  more  generally  the  exegete,  will 

*  It  is  not  the  part  of  the  translator  to  explain  or  comment.  He 
should  render  the  expressions  of  the  original,  and  retain  its  harshness, 
its  obscurity,  its  paradoxical  character,  without  concerning  himself 
with  the  consequences  ;  he  should  not  be  afraid  of  metaphors  which 
seem  strange  because  they  are  strange.  ("  Vinum  dat  cornua  pauperi." 
Seethe  word  horn,  in  1  Samuel,  ii.  10,  and  Psalm  cxxii.  9.)  There 
is  even  here,  however,  a  limit.  These  metaphors,  for  example,  in  the 
language  of  the  text  are  lifeless  ;  they  are  revived  in  the  translation, 
and  thus  even  exaggerate  the  thought  of  the  original.  This  depre- 
ciation of  the  signs  of  language  has  place  in  all  idioms,  and  shows  us 
why  we  receive  in  certain  respects  a  more  vivid  impression  from 
works  written  in  another  language,  than  from  those  of  our  own.  "We 
are  even  led  into  error  under  the  force  of  the  expression.  It  is  some 
time  before  the  Frenchman  who  reads  English  books,  can  reduce  to 
its  just  import  the  adjective  anxious,  which  signifies  neither  angoisse 
nor  anxieiix  but  simply  desireux  or  curieux.  Then,  there  are  modes  of 
speaking,  the  exact  reproduction  of  which  would  produce,  without  any 
advantage,  a  strange  efi'ect.  What  if  we  should  translate  literally 
such  a  phrase  as  this :  cd  ■Kapayyelia  TrapTj-yyeDiajuev.  (Acts,  v.  28.)   "We 


112  EXTERNAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT. 

have  to  consider  here  two  things,  which  perhaps  are  only- 
one,  the  character,  the  customs  of  the  language,  and  the  philo- 
sophy of  the  people.     Let  us  speak  first  of  the  former  point. 

The  same  words,  the  same  forms  have  one  meaning  in  a 
language  in  which  the  spirit  of  synthesis  predominates,  an- 
other in  a  language  distinguished  by  an  analytic  spirit.  Syn- 
thetic language  is  that  of  pure  poetry  ;  analytic  that  of  pure 
prose.  Neither  one  nor  the  other  exists.  Analysis  pre- 
vails in  our  language,  synthesis  in  that  of  the  sacred  authors. 

It  appears  to  be  the  character  of  a  synthetic  language  to 
establish  a  communication  between  all  communicable  ideas, 
so  that  the  entire  language  becomes  an  unbroken  line. 
Analysis  classifies  and  distinguishes  with  more  and  more 
precision ;  each  sign  occupies  a  circumscribed  sphere,  from 
which  it  is  not  permitted  to  depart.  Words  which  before  the 
reign  of  analysis  were  very  elastic,  have  afterwards  to  retreat 
into  their  shell.*  Bossuet  hence  remarked  of  the  style  of 
Calvin,  that  it  is  triste,  that  is  to  say,  nude,  austere.  Languages 
in  this  way  are  becoming  more  and  more  subject  to  order ; 
nothing  is  arbitrary ;  and  if  we  cannot  but  observe  that  our 
own  language  in  this  respect  differs  from  itself  as  it  was  two 
centuries  ago,  how  much  more  striking  must  be  the  differ- 
ence between  the  French  and  the  Hebrew ! 

When  we  have  to  do  with  a  book  written  in  poetic  lan- 
guage in  which  synthesis  predominates,  we  ought  to  have 
regard  to  the  usages  of  this  language. 

should  do  wrong,  nevertheless,  not  to  translate  n^^an  n'^b  (Moth- 
tthamoth.)  Genesis  ii.  17:  "Thou  shalt  die  of  death."'  {Tumourras 
de  mort.)  Would  it  be  a  safe  rule  always  to  translate  the  same  word 
by  the  same  word  ?  It  is  neither  safe  nor  natural  to  do  so.  We  must 
not  flatter  ourselves  that  we  shall  be  as  much  more  faithful  as  we  are 
more  literal.  Often  we  shall  be  less ;  this  is  easily  understood.  We 
are  far  from  having  an  exact  translation,  and  if  in  order  to  hear  the 
word  of  God,  we  must  have  the  letter  of  that  word,  then  we  do  not 
possess  the  word  of  God. 
*  Bentrer  dans  leur  coquille. 


EXTERNAL  SENSE   OF  THE  TEXT.  113 

A  poetic  language,  a  language  I  mean  spoken  by  a  poetic 
people,  delights  alternately  to  diminish  and  augment,  that 
the  imagination  of  the  reader  may  be  exercising  in  adding 
or  retrenching  *  The  Bible  is  filled  with  these  modes  of 
speaking,  and  they  have  been  often  abused. 

It  delights  by  turns  to  make  absolute  that  which  is  relative, 
and  relative  that  which  is  absolute. f 

It  generalizes  that  which  is  particular,  and  particularizes 
that  which  is  general ;  takes  duty  sometimes  at  its  summit, 
sometimes  at  its  base.  J; 

It  does  not  distinguish  nicely  the  notions  which  are  closely 
related  to  each  other.  Wicked  and  foolish  ;  to  say  and  to 
do  ;  to  hnow^MidL  to  prove  ;  to  regret  said  to  repent;  to  repent 
and  to  change  a  purpose  ;  to  forget  and  to  betray^  to  judge  and 
to  condemn.  It  takes  sentiment  for  action  ;  and  reciprocally. 
It  delights  in  the  consonance  of  ideas,  in  synonyms,  in  sym- 
metry, in  parellisms,  in  advancing  in  couples  or  in  pairs  of 
ideas.  § 

*  Examples:  "Sin  by  the  commandment  slew  me."  (Romans, 
vii.  11.) 

"Whosoever  is  born  of  God  doth  not  commit  sin."  (1  John,  iii.  9.) 

"That  which  is  highly  esteemed  among  men  is  abomination  in  the 
sight  of  God."  (Luke,  xvi.  15.) 

"  If  any  man  will  come  after  me  and  hate  not  his  father  and  his 
mother,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple."  (Luke,  xiv.  26.) 

"Against  these  things  there  is  no  law."  (Galatians,  v.  23.) 

"The  unfruitful  works  of  darkness."  (Ephesians,  v.  11.) 

"  (Onesimus)  who  was  formerly  unprofitable  to  thee."  (Philemon, 
11.) 

f  "Invite  not  thy  friends."  (Luke,  xiv.  12.) 

"He  went  down  to  his  house  justified  rather  than  the  other." 
(Luke,  xviii.  14.) 

X  "  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbor."  (Ex- 
odus, XX.  16.) 

§  "  The  turning  away  of  the  simple  shall  slay  them,  and  the 
prosperity  of  fools  shall  destroy  them."  (Proverbs,  i.  32.) 


114  EXTERNAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT. 

It  classifies  without  scientific  purpose.  "  Create  in  me  a 
clean  heart,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me."  (Psalm  li. 
12.)  The  Old  and  the  New  Testament  abound  in  similar 
examples.  We  frequently  find  in  the  prophets  and  apostles 
series  of  substantives  or  adjectives,  which  have  been  taken 
very  improperly  as  the  base  of  divisions  in  discourses. 

It  likes  to  play  upon  words,  a  character,  however,  which  in 
some  measure  obtains  in  all  languages.* 

Such  is  the  language  of  the  Bible ;  and  further,  each  of 
the  epochs  which  are  represented  in  it,  each  of  the  authors 
who  contributed  to  it,  has  a  peculiar  style.  We  must  even 
go  farther,  and  not  only  compare  the  words  of  the  author 
with  another,  but  those  of  the  same  author  with  themselves. 
The  word  faith  has  not  always  the  same  signification  in  the 
same  author.    Sometimes  it  has  an  abstract  sense  (Hebrews, 

"  Thy  word  is  a  lamp  unto  my  feet,  and  a  light  unto  my  path." 
(Psalm,  cxix.  105.) 

"  The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my  salvation ;  whom  shall  I  fear  ?  The 
Lord  is  the  strength  of  my  life ;  of  whom  shall  I  be  afaid  ?"  (Psalm 
xxvii.  1.) 

"  Rejoice  not  when  thine  enemy  falleth,  and  let  not  thine  heart  be 
glad  when  he  stumbleth."  (Proverbs,  xxiv.  lY.) 

"  He  satisfieth  the  longing  soul,  and  filleth  the  hungry  soul  with 
goodness."  (Psalm  cvii.  9.)    See  also  Isaiah,  lix.  1-6.     ,-.   f^  ^  _ 

Our  modern  languages  are  not  strangers  to  this  usus.  Perils  and 
risks ;  death  and  martyrdom ;  fear  and  trembling  ;  usages  and  customs  ; 
hy  way  and  by  road  ;  ways  and  means.  On  this  character  of  Biblical 
language,  see  Herder,  Hebr.  Foesie,  tome  i.,  p.  23,  and  Petavel,  La 
file  de  Sion,  p.  76. 

*  The  German  has:  Schutz  und  Trutz,  leben  wxd  weben ;  schalten 
und  waken  ;  eile  mit  Weile.  The  French  :  Ni  feu  ni  lieu  ;  sans  foi 
ni  loi ;  peu  et  paix.  Kempis  says :  via  crucis  via  lucis.  These  paron- 
omasia, or  chimes,  are  common  in  Scripture:  JiPibT  ^fh  (Genesis, 
1.  2.)  inbsil  "'P'nS  (2  Samuel,  vii.  18.)  In  Greek:  Romans,  i.  29; 
Hebrews,  v.  8, — comp.  Herder,  Hebraische  Poesie,  tome  ii.,  p.  280-287 ; 
Gesenius,  Hebraiscfies  LehrgeboeudCy  §  237  ;  and  Winee,  Orammatik 
des  Neutestamentlichen  Sprachidioms,  §  62. 


EXTERNAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT.       115 

xi.  1),  sometimes  a  concrete  sense;  here  it  has  an  intellec- 
tual, elsewhere  a  moral  sense.*  I  say  nothing  of  cases  in 
which  the  word  faith  has  neither  of  these  significations,  but 
means  mere  persuasion. 

Not  to  err  as  to  the  external  sense  of  the  text  which  he 
uses,  the  preacher  must  consider,  as  we  have  said,  together 
with  the  custom  and  character  of  the  language  which  sup- 
plies them,  the  philosophy  of  the  people  who  speak  it,  their 
habits  of  thought,  the  classifications  of  their  different  no- 
tions. He  will  be  greatly  aided  in  this  by  the  etymology 
of  words.  A  language  is  formed  out  of  a  multitude  of 
things ;  the  inward  thoughts  of  a  people,  their  beliefs,  their 
religion,  their  history,  their  social  and  political  life,  the  exter- 
nal circumstances  in  which  they  are  placed,  are  reflected  in 
it,  as  in  a  mirror.  The  whole  external  and  internal  life  of  a 
people,  is  in  their  language.  However  profoundly  their 
habits  of  thought  may  be  modified,  their  language  at  once  is 
sensibly  aflfected  by  them. 

Christianity  has,  in  one  sense,  corrupted  the  Latin  ;  it  has 
removed  it  from  its  sphere ;  it  has  obliged  it  to  give  express- 
ion to  a  life,  from  which  it  was  originally  foreign.  In  pro- 
portion as  men  were  converted,  they  converted  the  language. 
A  Roman,  certainly,  could  not  find  his  language  in  the  Latin 
of  the  Church,  and  he  could  not  even  understand  it  except  by 
becoming  a  Christian.  A  religion  may  create  a  philosophy 
of  language.     Our  modern  languages  are  christian. 

Only  by  having  performed  this  labor,  and  fixed  the  prin- 

*  Comp.  1  Corintliians,  xiii.  2,  "faith  to  remove  mountains,"  and 
James,  ii.  20,  "faith  without  works  is  dead;"  Philippians,  ii.  17,  "the 
offering  of  your  faith,"  and  Colossians,  ii.  8,  "  the  confirmation  of 
your  faith ;"  James,  i.  7,  "  the  trial  of  your  faith,"  and  1  Thessaloni- 
ans,  iii.  10,  "that  which  is  lacking  in  your  faith ;"  Hebrews,  xiii.  7, 
"  whose  faith  follow,"  and  James,  i.  6,  "  let  him  ask  in  faith." 


116  EXTEENAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT. 

ciples  of  rendering  Biblical  language,  may  we  assure  our- 
selves that  we  have  taken  a  text  in  its  true  sense. 

The  true  object,  in  this  matter,  is  not  so  much  to  obtain 
mere  precision,  as  to  guard  ourselves  against  having  too 
much  of  it.  Let  it  be  observed,  that  it  is  this  precision  or 
literalism  which  has  given  place  to  the  dogma  of  the  real 
presence  :  "  Except  you  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  man,  and 
drink  his  blood."  (John,  vi.  33.)  This  ill  placed  rigor  of 
interpretation  has  given  rise  to  a  multitude  of  heresies, 
which  spring  only  from  literalism.  Let  us  beware  lest, 
while  we  cry  out  aginst  this  rigor,  we  fall  into  it. 

A  language  less  vague,  expressions  less  fluctuating,  will 
give  place,  it  is  said,  to  fewer  doubts  and  disputes.  But 
where  shall  we  find  this  perfectly  precise  language  ?  for  no- 
thing less  is  needed,  when  once  we  lay  down  this  rule.  One 
word  is  distinct  from  another  which  follows  it,  but  how  shall 
we  separate  them  1  Such  a  language  has  no  existence  ;  if  it 
did  exist,  it  would  not  be  a  human  language.  It  would  only 
express  abstractions.  It  would  be  the  most  perfect  of  phil- 
osophies, the  philosophy  definitive,  but  it  would  not  be  a 
word. 

We  well  know  the  extravagancies  of  which  the  language 
of  the  Bible  has  been  the  pretext ;  know  we  that  also  of 
which  a  language  wholly  different  would  have  been  the  occa- 
sion 1 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the  language  of  the  Bible, 
without  that  ideal  precision  of  which  we  have  spoken,  might 
have  been  more  precise.  It  might  have  been  so  precise  as 
to  give,  I  do  not  say  the  understanding,  but  the  heqf  t  and 
conscience,  nothing  to  do  ;  but  this  precisely  is  what  God 
has  not  desired. 

"  It  has  been  a  cause  of  scandal  that  the  Bible  has  not 
been  so  written  as  to  render  divisions  impossible.  Doubtless 
he  who  made  the  Bible  could  have  given  a  symbol,  and  the 


EXTEENAL   SENSE   OF  THE   TEXT.  117 

most  perfect  of  all  symbols  in  place  of  it.  But  why  has  he 
not  done  this  1  That  man  might  not  be  obliged  to  enter 
into  relations  with  him,  immediately  and  with  his  whole 
being  ?  That  the  most  rigorous  precision  and  concentration 
of  religious  ideas,  might  excuse  him  from  making  any  use 
of  his  conscience  in  this  study  1  That  there  might  be  no- 
thing to  put  his  rectitude  and  his  candor  to  the  proof  ?  That 
he  might  receive,  already  prepared,  the  true  sense  of  the 
Bible,  and  that  he  might  not  occupy  himself  in  ascertaining 
it "?  In  a  word,  that  he  might  remain  passive,  where  it  is 
most  important  that  his  activity,  his  liberty  should  be  dis- 
played, and  his  responsibility  exercised  1  God  be  praised 
that  it  is  not  so,  and  that  every  man  is  at  the  same 
time  able  and  obliged  to  find,  through  all  those  phases, 
all  those  facts,  all  those  personalities,  of  which  the  Bible 
is  composed,  that  general  and  eternal  truth,  which  is  pre- 
sented to  him  in  the  Bible  only  in  a  character  in  some 
sort  occasional,  under  the  form  of  an  application,  and  al- 
ways mixed  up  with  some  event  or  some  life.  God  be 
praised  that  his  book  has  not  the  clearness  of  a  symbol,  that 
we  are  not  forced  to  understand  it  aright ;  that  many  senses 
may  be  given  to  his  word  !  God  be  praised  for  having  left 
a  part  to  our  own  activity,  in  the  acquisition  of  faith,  and 
that  intending  that  our  belief  should  be  an  action,  he  has  not 
added  to  the  Bible,  which  is  sufficient  for  sincere  hearts,  the 
dangerous  appendix  of  a  symbol !"  * 

This  is  what  we  had  to  say  on  the  determination  of  the 
verbal  sense.  He  who  shall  have  used  all  these  precautions, 
doubtless  will  not  be  disposed,  after  closing  one  source  of 
errors,  to  open  another  ;  that  is  to  say,  to  fix  arbitrarily  the 
internal  sense  of  the  text — I  mean  the  intention  of  the 
author.     Nevertheless  it  is  necessary  to  speak  of  this  also. 

*  M.  Vinet  here  quotes  himself.  See  Eevue  Suisse,  in  the  year 
1839,  p.  26,  et  seq. — (Editors.) 


118       INTERNAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT. 

If  we  take  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  we  shall  find  in  it  only  one 
intention,  only  one  purpose,  only  one  sense,  which  is  spiritual 
— the  triumph  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh,  the  adoration  of 
God  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

But  as  soon  as  we  descend  from  this  height,  from  this 
panoramic  view,  at  the  first  step  we  take  in  the  details,  we 
meet  with  two  orders  of  ideas  and  two  orders  of  texts  which 
correspond  to  them. 

And  first,  as  to  things  purely  temporal  and  material^  and  of 
texts  relating  to  temporal  order. 

Their  sense  is  neither  uncertain  nor  two-fold.  If  nothing 
clearly  indicates  or  expressly  reveals  an  allegorical  intention, 
(symbolical,  typical,  prefigurative,)  we  must  rest  in  the  strict 
sense. 

We  do  not  condemn,  on  the  contrary  we  approve,  the  in- 
tention of  pious  men,  who  have  given  a  more  elevated  sense 
to  passages  concerning  temporal  order  ;  arising  from  a  ne- 
cessity which  they  felt  of  spiritualizing  everything.  Thus, 
Quesnel,  in  expounding  these  words  :  "The  wise  men  re- 
turned to  their  own  country  by  another  way,"  (Matthew,  ii. 
12,)  observes,  that  "  we  never  return  to  heaven  except  by  a 
different  way  from  that  which  enstranged  us  from  it." 
Spiritual  men  certainly  can  do  nothing  better  than  to  make 
everything  a  means  of  awakening  spiritual  ideas  in  them- 
selves, but  the  question  here  relates  to  interpretation  and 
teaching,  and  we  can  see  nothing  serious  in  arbitrary  and 
loose  interpretation.  It  would  seem  that  the  Bible  has  been 
trifled  with  in  proportion  to  its  sacredness,  and  that  as  God 
has  surrendered  the  world  to  the  vain  disputes  of  men,  he 
has  surrendered  his  Word  to  the  frivolity  of  their  imagina- 
tion. No  human  book  has  in  this  way  been  so  tortured  and 
sported  with,  as  the  holy  Scripture.  The  preacher  cannot 
excuse  himself  under  the  pretense  that  he  is  not  an  interpre- 
ter, and  that  he  only  seeks  in  the  sacred  word  a  stai'ting- 


INTEENAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT.  119 

point  for  his  teaching  ;  the  excuse  avails  nothing  ;  for  were 
he  only  to  announce  a  text,  only  to  say  that  he  is  going  to 
preach  on  a  text,  that  is  always  saying  that  the  text  is  to  be 
explained,  or  that  the  truth  which  it  contains  is  to  be  proved ; 
in  a  word,  that  it  is  to  be  taken  in  a  serious  sense.  Catho- 
lic preachers  have  done  much,  by  the  choice  or  interpretation 
of  their  texts,  to  diminish  the  respect  which  is  due  to  the  di- 
vine Word.  When  one  sees  Massillon  interpreting  with  so 
much  lightness  a  very  plain  text,*  he  cannot  be  astonished 
at  what  less  serious  writers  have  done  in  the  same  way  ; 
that  a  writer,  treating  of  the  abolition  of  the  death-penalty, 
should  take  for  his  epigraph  these  words  of  Saint  Paul  : 
"  Thou  art  therefore  inexcusable,  oh  man,  whosoever  thou 
art  that  condemnest  others."      (Romans,  ii.  1.) 

We  must  distinguish  well  between  extension  (catachresis) 
and  metaphor.  There  is  only  a  simple  extension  of  the 
sense  when  one  takes  these  words :  "  in  quietness  shall  be 
your  strength,"  (Isaiah,  xxx.  16,)  as  the  text  of  a  sermon,  on 
the  duty  of  waiting  in  peace,  and  without  useless  disquiet  for 
the  salvation  of  the  Lord.  But  would  it  be  equally  proper 
in  preaching  on  the  necessity  of  coming  to  Jesus  Christ  in 
times  of  trouble  and  darkness,  to  take  as  a  text  the  words : 
"  Abide  with  us,  for  it  is  toward  evening,  and  the  day  is 
far  spent  "*?  (Luke,  xxiv.  29.)  I  think  not ;  there  is  here 
more  than  extension,  there  is  metaphor  and  even  a  play  of 
words. 

One  abuse  gives  the  signal  for  another.  Those  who  would 
see  realities  in  all  images,  develop  the  opposite  error,  which 
sees  nothing  but  images  in  realities.  Idealism  begets  real- 
ism. In  the  hands  of  the  last,  everything  takes  body ;  every- 
thing loses  body  in  the  hands  of  the  other.  One  of  them 
sees  types  everywh^ere ;  the  other  everywhere  finds  myths. 

*  In  VHomilie  sur  Lazare^  John,  xi.  30,  and  in  le  Sermon  sur  la 
Confession,  John,  v.  8. 


x/ 


120       INTEENAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT. 

When  we  abandon  the  rules  of  common  sense,  everything  is 
put  in  doubt,  and  no  sense  has  a  refuge. 

Reason  has  principles  which  are  common  to  man,  imagin- 
ation has  none ;  for  one  has  the  principle  of  identity  as  its 
basis,  the  other  that  of  analogy  or  resemblance. 

I  speak  here  of  fixing  the  sense  or  meaning  of  a  passage ; 
for,  otherwise,  I  know  that  the  germ  of  allegory  is  every- 
where, and  that  there  is  no  object  which  may  not  be  used  as 
an  image  of  some  other.  The  Bible  may  be  as  properly  so 
used  as  the  creation,  but  neither  more  nor  less.  It  is  because 
the  temporal  things  which  are  in  the  Bible,  make  part  of  the 
visible  world,  that  I  say  of  the  Bible  what  M.  de  Sacy  says 
of  the  world :  "  That  it  was  created  not  only  to  manifest  the 
power  of  God,  but  to  depict  invisible  things  by  visible." 
But  these  things  in  this  view,  are  the  world  and  not  the  Bible. 

Temporal  texts  then,  at  least  as  to  their  precise  bearing,  are 
to  remain  in  the  temporal  sense.  Allegory  puts  all  at  haz- 
ard, and  those  who  use  it  to  the  advantage  of  one  tendency, 
form,  without  knowing  it,  the  contrary  tendency. 

We  now  pass  to  things  of  the  spiritual  order,  and  to  the 
texts  which  relate  to  them.  There  are  two  sorts  of  these :  one 
purely  spiritual,  of  which  the  reality  is  altogether  in  the  in- 
visible world ;  the  other  mixed,  which  is  spiritual  also,  but 
which,  combined  with  facts  of  the  temporal  order,  take  place 
in  time  and  in  space. 

The  second  are  not  spiritual  in  the  way  of  allegory ;  they 
are  so  essentially  or  in  themselves ;  they  include,  they  ex- 
press the  same  truths  with  the  first,  but  after  all,  they  are 
spiritual  only  in  one  aspect,  with  which  we  must  be  content. 
Everything  which  matter  and  time  connect  accidentally  with 
a  spiritual  fact,  remains  material  and  temporal.  "We  must 
not  wish  to  spiritualize  this  element.  That  would  be  wishing 
to  enchase  a  diamond  m  a  diamond,  without  advantage ;  for 
it  is  not  with  the  diamond  of  truth  as  it  is  with  other  diamonds ; 


INTERNAL   SENSE   OF  THE  TEXT.  121 

its  value  depends  not  upon  its  size,  but  upon  its  purity  and 
its  brilliancy.  Without  reason,  then,  has  it  been  said  that 
Jacob's  crossing  his  arms  over  two  of  his  children,  signifies 
that  there  is  no  blessing  but  under  the  cross ;  it  would  follow 
that  the  other  children  of  Jacob  were  not  blessed.  It  has 
been  said,  also  improperly,  that  where  there  is  only  one  vic- 
tim, it  is  to  remind  us  that  the  only  victim  is  Christ,  and  that 
where  there  are  two,  it  is  to  indicate  that  Christ  behooved  to 
experience  sufferings  twice — in  Gethsemane  by  night,  and  on 
Golgotha  by  day.* 

The  government,  the  education  of  the  Jewish  people,  are 
spiritual  things.  Their  history,  as  a  whole,  is  the  most  per- 
fect image  of  the  individual  and  of  the  Christian,  under  the 
direction  of  God.  What  we  say  of  the  whole,  we  may  also 
say  of  the  grand  incidents.  The  favorable  entrance  of 
Israel  into  Canaan,  is  not  only  the  image  but  the  pattern  of 
the  obedience  and  resolution  of  the  Christian  who,  like  the 
Jew,  is  called  to  fight  and  to  suffer.  Faith  Is  the  soul  of 
both.  (See  Hebrews,  xi.)  The  manna  of  the  seventh  day 
is  an  exercise  of  faith  and  of  confidence.  But  if  we  would 
see  in  the  manna  the  distribution  of  the  spirit  of  God  to  be- 
lievers, in  each  of  the  enemies  encountered  by  the  Jews  the 
figure  of  each  obstacle  which  the  soul  meets  in  the  way  of  life, 
we  introduce  a  sort  of  amusement  into  the  most  serious 
matters.  By  seeking  to  make  all  certain,  we  make  all  un- 
certain. We  must  not  object  to  the  figures  and  types  indi- 
cated in  the  Bible.  They  indicate  to  me,  among  other  things, 
that  all  is  not  type  and  figure ;  if  all  were  so,  nothing  would  be. 

As  to  texts  which  are  purely  spiritual,  which  express  some 
idea  or  some  fact  of  the  moral  world,  we  comprehend  those 
in  this  number  which  are  complicated  with  a  temporal  cir- 
cumstance too  insignificant  to  be  taken  into  consideration. 

In  these  texts   we  must   distinguish   different  orders  or 

*  G.  MoNOD,  Explication  de  V Ecriture,  page  118. 
6 


122       INTERNAL  SENSE  OF  THE  TEXT. 

different  degrees  of  spirituality.  The  text  is  more  or  less  spirit- 
ual, according  as  the  idea  is  more  or  less  distinct,  the  object 
more  or  less  elevated,  the  sentiment  more  or  less  profound. 

The  faith  of  the  blind  men  (Matthew,  xx.  29-34)  who 
cried  :  "  O  Lord,  thou  son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  us,"  etc., 
though  real,  is  it  a  model  of  christian  faith  in  its  ideal  ? 
There  is  spirituality  here,  but  an  inferior  spirituality.  All 
that  the  christian  exercises  with  respect  to  Christ,  is  not  to 
be  found  here.  In  the  hosannah  of  the  multitude,  (Luke,  xix. 
37-38)  there  is,  if  you  will,  the  entire  christian  system.  This 
multitude  had  a  confused  impression  that  Christ  was  a  bless- 
ed being,  and  that  in  his  coming  there  was  peace  for  men 
and  glory  to  God.  But  that  this  impression  was  distinct, 
clear  and  complete,  is  more  than  doubtful.  It  would  be  a 
mistake  to  understand  these  words  as  we  might  do,  if  they 
had  been  pronounced  by  a  Paul,  a  Peter,  a  John,  after  the 
descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  * 

This  difference  as  to  degree  may  be  found  between  pas- 
sages of  the  same  book  ;  it  is  found  necessarily  between  the 
Old  and  New  Testament ;  for  though  the  work  which  these 
two  books,  as  a  whole,  exhibit  to  us,  is  a  unique  work,  it  is 
also  a  progressive  work.  It  is  unique,  since  God  has  never 
designed  more  than  one  thing,  the  re-establishment  of  his 
image  in  us,  the  formation  of  a  people  which  should  be  his  ; 
unique,  since  the  same  principles  penetrate  all  parts  of  the 
Bible  ;  as  faith,  sanctity  and  love,  in  respect  of  God ;  as  the 
law  of  his  life,  obedience  and  faith,  in  respect  of  man. 

In  the  first  view,  we  see  from  the  fall  everthing  prepared, 
everything  concerted  with  a  view  to  restoration. 

In  the  second,  we  see  forcibly  and  perpetually  inculcated, 
the  principles  on  which  the  whole  evangelical  doctrine  is  built. 
Christianity  is  more  ancient  than  Judaism  ;  faith,  in  its  princi- 

*  See  as  examples  of  the  same  kind  in  the  Old  Testament,  Jere- 
miah, xiii.  16  and  xx.  7. 


OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT.  123 

pie,  more  ancient  than  the  law.  Paul  remanded  the  He- 
brews quite  through  the  law,  to  the  faith  of  Abraham.  The 
law  did  only  then  "supervene,"  (Romans,  v.  20,)  to  supervene 
is  not  to  interrupt ;  but  no  more  is  it  to  commence. 

But  this  unity,  as  I  have  said,  has  the  form  of  progress. 
We  advance,  at  least,  to  more,  whether  it  be  in  work  or  in 
principle.  This  progression  is  that  of  a  germ,  which  does  not 
increase  by  superposition  from  without,  but  which  produces 
from  within  a  successive  development  purely  of  itself 

There  are  in  the  Old  Testament,  principles  laid  down,  an 
expectation  excited,  a  necessity  created ;  principles  which  the 
gospel  embodies,  an  expectation  which  it  realizes,  a  neces- 
sity which  it  has  met.  This  is  saying  beforehand,  that  from 
the  Old  Testament  to  the  New,  we  at  least  go  from  less  to 
more.  If  we  do  not,  in  fact,  at  least  go  from  less  to  more, 
we  do  not  comprehend  the  necessity  of  delay,  nor  the  reason 
of  the  two  economies.  Of  what  use  is  the  second,  if  all  is 
found  in  the  first  1 

It  may  be  said  that  all  the  elements  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  to  be  found  in  the  Old,  though  under  cover,  wanting 
in  precision,  in  perfection,  and  farther,  not  as  powerfully  con- 
secrated by  facts,  as  in  the  New  Testament. 

But,  after  all,*  they  are  consecrated  by  facts,  they  present 
themselves  at  the  outset,  under  this  form. 

*  The  passage  which  commences  here,  and  which  terminates  at 
page  125,  in  these  words,  "the  color  and  the  relief  are  wanting," 
is  marked  in  the  principal  manuscript  of  the  Homiletical  Course,  with 
a  sign  which  is  not  explained,  but  which  appears  to  indicate  that  M. 
Vinet  intended  to  review  it.  He  has  also  thus  condensed  it  in  a 
more  recent  but  much  abridged  manuscript:  "Whatever  is  element- 
ary in  the  truth,  is  expressed  in  the  same  manner,  and  with  the  same 
force  in  both  of  the  books ;  but  beyond  this  the  difference  begins  and 
it  is  considerable.  We  must  not  give  to  Old  Testament  texts  a  de- 
gree of  spirituality  which  they  have  not,  and  which  they  cannot 
have." — [Editors.] 


124  OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

God  consecrates  by  a  fact  the  idea  of  his  unity,  in  locat- 
ing his  presence,  although  his  agency  is  represented  as  uni- 
versal, and  his  nature  as  spiritual. 

He  consecrates  his  providence  by  the  fact  of  the  adoption 
protection  and  government  of  a  particular  people. 

He  consecrates  his  sovereignty  by  making  everything  con- 
verge in  himself,  even  to  the  least  detail,  in  the  direction  of 
outward  things.     (Theocrasy,  jealous  God.) 

He  consecrates  his  justice  by  penalties  and  rewards. 

He  consecrates  the  principle  of  spiritual  obedience,  or  of 
"  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth,"  (John,  iv.)  by  rejecting  a 
purely  outward  service,  though  it  were  perfectly  exact.  (Cain.) 

He  consecrates  the  principle  of  justifying  faith,  by  con- 
necting his  blessing  with  it,  and  making  the  head  and  person- 
ification of  his  elect  people,  a  hero  of  faith.  "  All  the  na- 
tions of  the  earth  shall  be  blessed  in  him."* 

He  consecrates  by  the  perpetual  sacrifice,  the  defection 
of  man  and  the  necessity  of  restoration.  He  announces  a 
Restorer. 

Finally,  in  the  bosom  of  the  legal  people  he  created  a 
spiritual  people,  subject  to  the  perfect  law  which  is  the  law 
of  liberty. 

All  these  ideas  are  realized  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  it 
was  necessary  that  they  should  be  personified.  Second  de- 
gree, person  Sifter  facts. 

When  the  gospel  says :  "  The  law  was  given  by  Moses, 
but  grace  and  truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ,"  (John,  i.  17,)  it 
does  not  establish  an  opposition  between  the  truth  and  the 
law,  but  it  means  to  say,  that  the  truth  was  not  entirely 

\  Genesis,  xviii.  18.  The  most  spiritual  things  are  the  most  an- 
cient ;  they  precede  the  law,  and  we  cannot  too  well  remember  that 
the  law  only  supervened,  (Romans,  v.  20,)  "that  sin  might  abound." 
The  end  and  the  beginning  are  united,  over  the  Mosaic  Economy,  that 
grand  episode. 


OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT.  125 

known,  distinctly  seen,  except  by  means  of  the  grace  which 
embraced  it  all,  (Baptism  of  water,  baptism  of  fire ;  voice 
from  the  earth,  voice  from  heaven ;  the  water  and  the  spirit.) 

Now  this  grace  was  not  revealed  to  the  people  of  the  Old 
Testament  as  distinctly  as  it  was  by  Jesus  Christ  to  that  of 
the  New.  The  law  contained  only  the  shadow  of  good  things 
to  come ;  (Hebrews,  x.  1,  viii.  5,)  the  law  is  the  shadow  which 
grace  throws  behind  itself;  every  shadow  supposes,  announces^ 
gives  the  anticipation  of  a  body  ;  it  gives  the  contour  of  it, 
the  general  form,  the  outline,  but  the  color  and  the  relief  are 
wanting.  We  may  say  of  it,  as  was  said  of  prophecy,  "  that 
it  is  a  light  which  shineth  in  a  dark  place,"  (2  Peter,  i.  19,) 
compared  to  the  sun  of  righteousness,  who  conveys  healing 
in  his  wings.     (Malachi,  iv.  2.) 

Moreover,  the  spiritual  members  of  this  people  penetrated 
with  all  the  principles  which  we  have  indicated,  were  virtual- 
ly Christians ;  I  mean  to  say  that  each  of  them  was  such  that 
if  Christ  had  unexpectedly  come  and  manifested  himself,  he 
would  not  have  had  to  change  his  principles  in  order  to  be 
an  actual  Christian.  He  was  a  Christian  because  he  would 
have  been  one ;  he  was  a  Christian  generally,  not  specially  ; 
implicitly,  not  explicitly ;  virtually  not  actually  ;  he  was  ele- 
mentally a  Christian. 

Whenever  he  expressed  these  elementary  convictions, 
which,  apart  from  the  immediate  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ, 
would  have  had  to  him  all  their  clearness  and  meaning,  this 
Christian  of  the  Old  Testament  said  a  thing  identical  to  that, 
which  the  same  terms  express  in  the  mouth  of  an  "  Israelite" 
of  the  New  Testament  ;*  and  we  may  without  restriction  or 
modification,  appropriate  his  words  to  ourselves,  although  he 
did  not  attach  to  them  all  the  ideas,  or  one  idea  as  precise, 
as  distinct,  as  concrete,  as  a  Christian  would  attach  to  them, 
under  the  new  dispensation.  A  remarkable  thing :  even  a 
*  "The  Israel  of  God."    Galatians,  vi.  16. 


126       TEXTS  TAKEN  FKOM  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

spiritual  Israelite  is  not  identical  with  a  spiritual  Christian  ; 
still  the  spiritual  people  of  the  Old  Testament  is  a  perfect 
image  of  the  Christian.  Nothing  is  more  spiritual  than  that 
which  was  spoken  to  this  people  or  of  this  people  in  the  Old 
Testament.  (Isaiah,  Ixiii.  14,  Ixvi.  12 ;  Jeremiah,  xxxi.) 
But  there  are  passages  which  seem  to  be  intended  to  show 
the  advantage  of  the  New  Testament  over  the  Old  ;  passages 
in  which  the  idea  is  not  only  less  precise,  but  less  perfect ; 
passages  in  which  the  comparative  defect  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment appears ;  ideas  which  require  to  be  completed,  purified, 
by  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testament. 

Considering  spirituality  only,  or  the  obligation  of  the 
preacher  to  keep  himself  on  a  level  with  the  spirituality  of 
the  gospel,  a  Christian  preacher  confining  himself  to  element- 
ary subjects,  might  preach  very  long  on  texts  taken  from  the 
Old  Testament ;  or  at  least  he  might,  without  altering  the 
sense,  and  without  remaining  below  the  spirit  of  Christianity, 
preach  very  often  on  texts  taken  from  this  portion  of  Scrip- 
ture.    We  will  endeavor  to  give  the  proof  of  this. 

Condition  of  Man.  Psalm  xxxix.  7-1 3,  "  Surely  every 
man  walketh  in  a  vain  show.  I  am  a  stranger  with  thee  and 
a  sojourner  as  all  my  fathers  were." 

Moral  Condition.  Jeremiah,  xvii.  9,  "  The  heart  is  de- 
ceitful above  all  things  and  desperately  wicked." 

Moral  wants  of  man.  Psalm  Ixiii.  2,  "  My  soul  thirsteth 
for  thee;  my  flesh  longeth  for  thee  in  this  desert  land." 
Psalm  li.  12.  "Create  in  me  a  clean  heart  and  renew  a 
right  spirit  within  me." 

Character  of  God.  Isaiah,  Ixiii.,  9,  10,  11,  Ixvi.  15,  "Be- 
hold the  Lord  will  come  with  fire,  and  with  his  chariots  like 
a  whirlwind,  to  render  his  anger  with  fury,  and  his  rebukes 
with  flames  of  fire."  Micah,  vii.  18,  "  Who  is  a  God  like 
unto  thee  that  pardoneth  iniquity,  and  passeth  by  the  trans- 
gression of  the  remnant  of  his  heritage  1     He  retaineth  not 


TEXTS  TAKEN  FROM  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     127 

his  anger  forever,  because  he  delighteth  m  mercy."  Job,  xv. 
15,  "The  heavens  are  not  clean  in  thy  sight."  Habakkuk, 
i.  13,  "Thou  art  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  evil."  Psalm 
ciii.  12,  "  As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west  so  far  hath  he 
removed  our  transgressions  from  us  ;"  (and  the  whole 
Psalm.)  Lamentations,  iii.  33,  "  He  doth  not  afflict  will- 
ingly nor  grieve  the  children  of  men."  Numbers,  xiv.  18, 
"Forgiving  iniquity  and  transgression,  and  by  no  means 
clearing  the  guilty."  Exodus,  xx,  5,  6,  "  I  the  Lord  thy  God 
am  a  jealous  God,  visiting  the  iniquity  of  the  fathers  upon 
the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation  of  them  that 
hate  me  ;  and  shewing  mercy  unto  thousands  of  them  that 
love  me  and  keep  my  commandments."  Jeremiah,  iii.  14, 
"Turn  O  backsliding  children  saith  the  Lord,"  (He  who 
first  loved  us.)  Ezekiel,  xxxiii.  11,  "I  have  no  pleas- 
ure in  the  death  of  the  wicked  ;  but  that  the  wicked  turn 
from  his  way  and  live."  Isaiah,  xlviii.  9,  "  For  my  name's 
sake  will  I  defer  mine  anger,"  (God  is  love.)  Ezekiel,  xx. 
22,  "  I  withdrew  mine  hand  for  my  name's  sake."  Psalm 
oviii.  4,  "  Thy  mercy  is  great  above  the  heavens  ;  and  thy 
truth  reacheth  into  the  clouds." 

Law  of  God.  Genesis,  xvii.  1,  "  Walk  before  my  face." 
Deuteronomy,  xxvii.  26,  "  Cursed  be  he  that  confirmeth  not 
all  the  words  of  this  law  to  do  them."  Comp.  1  Samuel,  ii. 
30,  "  Them  that  honor  me  I  will  honor,  and  they  that  despise 
me  shall  be  lightly  esteemed."  1  Samuel,  ii.  25,  "  If  one 
man  sin  against  another  the  judge  shall  judge  him  ;  but  if  a 
man  sin  against  the  Lord,  who  shall  entreat  for  him  ?" 

Conditions  of  the  Covenant. — I.  Psalm  cxv.  1,  "  Not  un- 
to us,  not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  but  unto  thy  name  give  glory  for 
thy  mercy  and  thy  truth's  sake."  Psalm  xliv.  26,  "  Re- 
deem us  for  thy  mercies'  sake."  Jeremiah,  xiv.  17,  "  O 
Lord,  though  our  iniquities  testify  against  us,  do  thou  it  for 
thy  name's  sake. 


128  PREPAKATORY  ECONOMY. 

II.  Deuteronomy,  x.  16,  "  Circumcise  the  foreskin  of  your 
heart."  Deuteronomy,  xxx.  6,  "  The  Lord  thy  God  will  cir- 
cumcise thy  heart."  1  Samuel,  xv.  22,  23,  "  Hath  the  Lord 
as  great  delight  in  burnt  offerings  and  sacrifices  as  in  obey- 
ing the  voice  of  the  Lord  1  Behold  to  obey  is  better  than 
sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams.  For  rebellion 
is  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft,  and  stubbornness  is  as  iniquity 
and  idolatry." 

These  are  evangelical  elements.  These  are  texts  which 
may  be  prefixed  to  a  sermon  without  putting  any  force  upon 
them,  without  stretching  them  on  the  bed  of  Procrustes. 
But  happy  as  we  may  be  to  discover  this  unity  or  ideality? 
we  must  not  seek  it  where  it  is  not,  and  forget  the  difference 
which  subsists  between  the  two  economies,  a  difference  which 
should  edify  rather  than  offend  us. 

We  must  not  give  to  texts  more  of  a  Christian  character 
than  belongs  to  them  ;  we  must  not  subject  men  of  the  Old 
Covenant  to  the  exact  conditions  of  the  Gospel.  We 
present  some  traits  which  belong  to  a  preparatory  econo- 
my. 

Sentiment  of  self  righteousness.  2  Samuel,  xxii.  21-23, 
(it  is  David  who  speaks,)  "  The  Lord  rewarded  me  accord- 
ing to  my  righteousness  ;  according  to  the  cleanness  of  my 
hands  hath  he  recompensed  me.  For  I  have  kept  the  ways 
of  the  Lord,  and  have  not  wickedly  departed  from  my  God. 
For  all  his  judgments  were  before  me ;  and  as  for  his  statutes 
I  did  not  depart  from  them."  Whence  is  it  that  there  is  not 
a  passage  like  this  in  the  New  Testament  1  For  what  Paul 
says,  (1  Corinthians,  iv.  4,)  "  I  am  conscious  of  no  blame," 
is  another  thing. 

Traces  of  severity.  Psalm  cxxxix.  21-22,  "dDo  not  I 
hate  them  O  Lord,  that  hate  thee  ?  I  hate  them  with  perfect 
hatred."  Nehemiah,  iv.  5,  "  Cover  not  their  iniquity,  and 
let  not  their  sin  be  blotted  out  from  before  thee."     Jere- 


PEEPARATORY  ECONOMY.  129 

miah,  xviii.  23,  "  Forgive  not  their  iniquity,  neither  blot  out 
their  sin  from  thy  sight."  Deuteronomy,  xxiii.  6,  "  Thou 
shalt  not  seek  their  peace  nor  their  prosperity  all  thy  days 
forever."     (Referring  to  the  Ammonite  and  the  Moabite.) 

We  must  remark  certain  terms,  the  recurrence  of  which  is 
frequent,  and  which  are  of  most  important  meaning,  {Saviour, 
Redeemer,  the  redeemed,  just,  soul,  wisdom,  word,)  and  recog- 
ni^what  of  accordance  there  is  in  each  of  these  words  with 
Christian  ideas,  but  not  constrain  what  remains,  (compelle  in- 
trare,)  to  enter  into  the  Christian  system. 

We  read  in  Proverbs,  viii.  34-35,  "  Blessed  is  the  man 
that  heareth  me,  watching  daily  at  my  gates,  waiting  at  the 
posts  of  my  doors.  For  whoso  findeth  me,  findeth  life,  and 
shall  obtain  favor  of  the  Lord."  It  is  wisdom  that  speaks. 
It  is  a  virtual  Christian  who  makes  him  speak ;  under  a  more 
vague  notion,  it  is  what  an  actual  Christian  loves,  what  he 
adores  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  under  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ : 
the  two  adore  the  same  object;  and  the  difference  between 
them  is,  that  one  knows  perfectly,  as  the  other  does  not,  what 
he  adores.  (John,  iv.  22.)  In  treating  this  text,  I  would 
not  say  that  the  author  saw  what  Saint  John  expressed  under 
the  term  Word  or  Reason.  But  this  wisdom  of  the  virtual 
Christian  includes  elements  which  the  actual  Christian  does 
not  reject.  We  have  distinguished  and  enumerated  these 
elements,  we  have  only  to  translate  this  passage  into  the 
language  of  the  gospel,  after  having  carefully  remarked  its 
primitive  sense,  which  differs  from  ours,  not  essentially,  but 
only  as  having  less  precision. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  why  not  draw  directly  and  exclusively 
from  the  gospel  1  In  order,  we  answer,  to  manifest  the 
unity  of  God's  work  and  thought,  the  unity  of  the  two  econ- 
omies, the  perpetuity  of  Christianity  in  two  senses,  (as  re- 
mounting into  the  past,  as  descending  into  the  future,)  the 
fraternity  of  the  living  members  of  the  church  in  distant 

6* 


130  PREPAKATORY  ECONOMY. 

times.  It  is  alike  interesting  to  exhibit  the  agreements  and 
differences  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament.  There 
are  many  in  our  day  who  know  not  what  to  make  of  the  Old 
Testament,  who  see  in  it  our  origin  and  nothing  else ;  a  chasm 
in  our  religious  life.  We  shall  be  reconciled  to  the  Old  Tes- 
tament only  when  we  shall  find  the  New  in  it.  Preachers 
must  make  it  necessary,  must  make  it  savory,  and  show 
that  the  prophets  were  "  a  light  which  shone  in  a  ^rk 
place."     (2  Peter,  i.  19.) 

When  the  Christian  preacher  has  a  Jewish  text,  let  him 
not  abide  in  it,  but  let  him  show  that  he  does  not,  and  at  the 
same  time  that  there  is  a  connection  between  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  New.  Out  of  many  passages  relating  to  the 
righteous  and  the  wicked,  let  us  take  one  example :  "  He 
who  walketh  uprightly,  walketh  surely."  (Proverbs,  x.  9.) 
We  may  say  that  the  converse  is  true  according  to  the  sense 
of  the  gospel.  But  still  why  reverse  the  terms  1  He  who 
has  a  good  conscience,  that  is  to  say  a  conscience  which  fol- 
lows evangelical  principles,  walks  surely,  even  when  he  sees 
not  whither  he  is  going.  We  must  then  treat  this  passage  in 
the  sense  in  which  we  find  it,  not  in  that  which  we  give  to  it. 

While  observing  all  these  cautions  we  may  still  come  short 
of  the  rule  by  making  a  false  application  of  the  text ;  for  exam- 
ple, by  takirjg  as  the  text  of  a  sermon  on  the  infallible  connec- 
tion of  sin  and  punishment,  the  passage  of  Matthew,  vii.  16, 
"  Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns  or  figs  of  thistles  ?" 

As  to  the  extension  or  catachresis  of  the  text,  that  is 
another  thing.  In  certain  circumstances  nothing  is  more 
legitimate  or  more  necessary. 

All  that  we  have  now  said  comes  to  this :  that  we  must 
not,  in  the  matter  of  spirituality,  rise  above  the  text.  This 
is  consistent  with  saying,  that  neither  must  we  remain  below 
it.     But  though  we   would  not  have   either  ascending  or 


EXTENSION  OF  THE  TEXT.  131 

descending  extension,  we  are  not  opposed  to  a  lateral   or 
horizontal  extension. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  internal  sense  of  texts.  This  in- 
ternal sense  comprehends  not  only  the  idea  which  sprmgs 
immediately  from  the  words  of  the  text,  but  an  idea  wliich 
may  be  implicated  with  it — such  or  such  a  consequence  or 
application,  which,  though  not  present  to  the  writer's  mind, 
and  from  the  time  and  circumstances  in  which  he  lived  could 
not  perhaps  have  been  present  to  it,  springs  spontaneously 
from  the  principle  which  he  expresses.  It  is  objected,  that 
we  may  thus  descend  or  rise  beyond  the  writer's  views, 
since  we  do  not  conflict  with  it.  We  answer,  that  there  is 
as  to  this  a  simple  rule — to  inquire  if  the  author  would  recog- 
nize and  own  his  thought,  in  the  development  which  we 
give  to  it.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  method  of  Jesus  Christ, 
to  lead  us  to  argue  from  the  species  to  the  genus,  in  order 
to  exercise  us  in  moral  reasoning,  the  logic  of  conscience, 
spontaneity.     Thus,  Matthew,  xix.  16-23. 

The  true  utility  of  taking  texts  is  not  so  much  that  they 
present,  directly,  the  truth  we  wish  to  develop  or  prove,  as 
that  they  offer  it  in  an  aspect  more  salient,  more  pointed, 
more  accidental,  than  that  of  abstract  presentation. 

Thus  it  is  advantageous  to  descend,  in  the  choice  of  the  text, 
from  the  idea  of  the  genus  to  that  of  the  species,  and  even 
of  the  individual.  We  may  here  apply  the  word  of  Fon- 
tenelle,  (which  is  not  absolutely  true,)  that  we  must  not  in- 
troduce "  the  truth  by  the  large  end."  It  is  a  psychological 
remark,  which  may  be  easily  verified,  that  a  great  grief,  a 
great  joy,  affects  us  less  by  the  broadest  aspect,  than  by  some 
accessory  circumstance,  some  unsuspected  detaO.  In  mo- 
rality, the  oblique  rays  are  the  warmest. 

Let  us  cite  some  examples  in  support  of  this  remark. 
Genesis,  xxix.  20,  "Jacob  served  seven  years  for  Rachel, 
which  seemed  to  him  only  as  a  few  days,  because  he  loved 


132  EXTENSION  OF  THE  TEXT. 

her."  We  have  here  the  expression  of  the  general  idea,  that 
when  one  loves,  sacrifices  appear  light,  and  time  short.  Yet 
this  general  idea  makes  less  impression  than  the  particular 
idea  of  the  text.  Acts,  xiii.  46,  "  Then  Paul  and  Barnabas 
waxed  bold,  and  said  :  It  was  necessary  that  the  word  of 
God  should  first  have  been  spoken  to  you,  but  since  ye  put 
it  from  you  and  judge  yourselves  unworthy  of  everlasting 
life,  lo,  we  turn  to  the  Gentiles."  If  we  would  present  the 
idea,  which,  by  the  way,  caimot  be  everywhere  treated,  that 
besides  the  Gospel,  there  is  an  apocryphal  Gospel,  a  false 
Messiah,  we  might  take  for  our  text  the  passage,  '  Art  thou 
he  that  should  come  ?"  (Luke,  vii.  20.)  Or  again,  that,  in 
the  book  of  Acts  where  the  evil  spirit  says  to  the  sons  of 
Sceva,  "  Jesus  I  know,  and  Paul  I  know,  but  who  are  ye  ?" 
Acts,  xix.  15.  All  makers  of  new  gospels,  all  self-styled 
reformers  of  human  nature  are  overthrown  by  these  singular 
words.  In  short,  to  treat  a  text  is  not  only  to  draw  from  it 
a  truth  substantially  or  formally  contained  in  the  express- 
ions of  which  the  text  is  composed  ;  it  is  likewise  to  de- 
duce from  it  such  truth  as  this  text  supposes,  of  which  it 
offers  the  starting-point,  or  which  it  presents  in  an  example 
or  inference,  or  some  other  such  natural  appendage.* 

It  is  only  by  proceeding  in  this  large  method,  that  we  can 
treat  all  the  subjects  which  deserve  our  attention  ;  for,  if  we 
follow  a  narrower  way,  we  shall  find  ourselves  reduced  to 
the  alternative  either  of  sacrificing  many  subjects,  or,  if  we 
will  treat  them,  to  do  a  cruel  violence  to  texts.  We  may 
excuse  Tillotson,  for  finding,  in  1  Corinthians,  xi.  26-28, 
the  subject  of  frequent  communion,  but  how  can  we  excuse 
the  preacher  who  founded  a  sermon  on  the  reciprocal  duties 

*  Nevertheless,  the  doctrine  of  Maury  is  loose,  when  it  admits  that 
we  may  be  content  with  an  analogy  between  the  text  and  the  subject, 
Es&ay  sur  VEloquence  de  la  Chaire^  vii. 


THE   CONTEXT.  133 

of  proprietors  and  tenants,  on  Acts,  xxviii.  30,  "  Paul  dwelt 
two  whole  years  in  his  own  hired  house."* 


2.  The  Context.  We  may  obtain  the  true  sense  of  a  text 
by  having  regard  to  the  nexus  or  context,  that  is  to  say,  to 
what  precedes  or  follows  the  text  when  it  makes  part  of  a 
connected  discourse,  in  the  place  of  the  passage. 

There  is  a  context  of  action  as  well  as  of  words.  Life  is 
a  book,  of  which  each  day  is  a  page  and  each  hour  a  line. 
We  cannot  judge  of  each  of  these  pages  or  lines  taken  by 
themselves.  This  rule  of  morality  which  we  are  bound  to 
observe  in  judging  of  the  conduct  of  other  men,  becomes 
now  a  rule  of  interpretation. 

There  is  a  general  context — the  place  of  every  text — which 
is  the  Bible  taken  as  a  whole.  We  must  not  fail  to  compare 
our  text  with  the  general  doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture,  from 
which  we  are  permitted  to  subtract  nothing.  It  is  of  great 
importance  that  we  guard  ourselves  against  the  suggestions 
of  party  spirit,  which,  in  such  a  matter,  may  easily  warp  a 
judgment  otherwise  very  sound.  When  Jesus  says,  for  ex- 
ample, "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,"  (John,  xvili.  36,) 
has  he  not  admonished  us  that  it  would  be  forgetting  the 
spirit  of  his  teachings,  to  see  in  Matthew,  xx.  25, 26,  a  proof 
that  democracy  is  preferable  to  other  forms  of  government  ? 

There  is  a  particular  context,  which,  in  respect  to  each  pas- 
sage^ (this  word  itself  conveys  instruction,)  is  the  place  in 
which  it  is  found — the  words  which  precede  and  follow  it. 

By  disregarding  the  context,  we  may  give  to  the  text  a 
sense  contrary  to  the  intention  of  the  author,  or  to  the  gen- 
eral sense  of  revelation.     The  finest  sense  is  to  be  rejected 

*  These  impertinences,  along  time  ago,  gave  occasion  for  the  re- 
mark of  Cardinal  Hypolitus  of  Este,  cited  by  Balzac :  Buon  per  la 
predica  !    Riservate  questoper  la  predica  I 


184  THE   CONTEXT. 

when  the  context  is  against  it.  To  what  extremes  would  this 
procedure  lead  us,  applied  to  such  passages  as  Jeremiah  ix.  4 : 
"  Take  ye  heed  every  one  of  his  neighbor,  and  trust  ye  not 
in  any  brother ;"  and  Psalms  vi.  11,  "  All  men  are  liars,"  and 
others  which  might  be  mentioned  1 

There  are  texts,  which,  as  isolated,  announce  interesting 
truths,  which  yet  we  must  not  draw  from  them,  because  the 
context  does  not  authorize  it.     Thus : 

1  John,  iii.  20,  "  God  is  greater  than  our  heart." 
John,  viii.  32,  "  The  truth  shall  make  you  free." 

2  Corinthians,  iii.  17,  "  Where  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  is, 
there  is  liberty." 

The  study  of  the  nexus  has  not  only  a  negative  importance. 
We  are  not  simply  to  avoid  a  false  sense,  but  to  seize  the 
whole  truth.  The  circumstances  which  surround  a  text,  (an 
assertion  without  proof,)  surround  it  with  a  light,  or  tinge  it 
with  a  reflection  which  must  not  be  neglected.  For  even  if 
they  add  no  shade,  they  always  individualize  the  truth. 

What,  moreover,  is  an  idea  without  some  nexus,  and  with 
no  appearance  of  individuality  1  What  man  does  not  mix 
something  of  himself  with  his  idea  1 

We  do  not,  by  this,  mean  to  say  that  an  announcement, 
general  in  its  form,  is  to  be  compressed  within  the  circle  of 
the  particular  circumstances  of  him  who  gave  it  expression.* 
The  nexus  never  hinders  us  from  generalizing,  from  under- 
standing the  idea  of  the  text  according  to  the  principles  which 
we  have  already  laid  down. 

We  must  ascend  no  higher  than  is  necessary  to  determine 
well  the  sense  or  meaning  of  the  words  of  the  text.  Saurin 
has  unquestionably  passed  beyond  just  bounds,  in  his  sermon 
on  True  Liberty. \ 

*  Example:  "I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ,  who  strengtheneth 
me."    Philippians,  iv.  13. 

f  Tome  iii.,  p.  335,  Nouvelle  Edition. 


OBSCUKE  TEXTS.  135 

Let  us  here  introduce  an  observation  which  is  not  without 
importance.  A  text  has  not  two  senses.  Though,  according 
to  the  tenor  of  the  words  of  which  it  is  composed,  it  may 
present  two  distmct  senses,  and  these  two  senses  be  very  fine, 
we  are  to  give  but  one  of  them  to  our  auditory,  and  above 
all  are  we  not  to  give  them  the  discussion  which  establishes 
it.* 

m. 

A  text  without  offering  two  senses,  may  not  offer  a  clear 
sense. 

There  may  be  obscurity  in  the  idea,  when  the  object  of 
the  text  is  in  a  region  too  high  to  be  reached  by  our  analysis. 
Thus,  as  to  the  passage  in  1  Cormthians,  xv.  27,  28,  on  the 
subjection  of  all  things  to  God  ;t  in  1  Peter,  iii.  18-20,  on 

*  See  Ephesians,  i.  iv,  "Without  blame  in  or  by  love." 

John,  i.  9,  "  Every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world." 

Colossians,  iii.  14,  "The  bond  of  perfection." 

Philippians,  ii.  6,  "He  thought  it  not  robbery,"  or  "did  not  take  a 
pride  in." 

Matthew  v.  9,  "Blessed  are  the  peacemakers." 

Luke,  vii.  47,  "  For  she  hath  loved  much."  Osterwald  translates, 
"It  is  for  this  cause  that  she  loved  much." 

■j-  Quesnel  explains  this  passage  thus :  "  In  the  estate  of  innocence, 
God  spake  to  and  communed  with  men,  immediately  by  himself. 
Sin  has  changed  everything.  In  the  estate  of  natural  law  and  the 
law  of  Moses,  this  was  done  by  angels,  by  men  and  by  various  out- 
ward means.  In  the  estate  of  the  law  of  grace,  it  is  done  by  Jesus 
Christ,  his  Son,  sent  to  men  in  order  to  bring  them  again  to  obe- 
dience, and  to  establish  the  kingdom  of  his  Father.  In  heaven,  God 
by  himself  works  all  in  all.  Jesus  Christ  having  finished  his 
work,  which  is  to  gather  together  the  elect  of  God,  to  direct 
them  on  earth,  and  to  conduct  them  to  his  Father,  there  will 
be  no  more  the  mediation  or  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ,  no  more  the 
ministration  of  angels,  no  more  the  ministry  of  men,  no  more  need 
of  the  Scriptures,  no  more  necessity  of  external  means.  God  in 
the  trinity  of  his  person,  will  reign  by  himself ;  the  entire  body  of 
the  Church,  the  head  and  the  members,  will  subsist  and  live  in  him 


136  OBSCURE  TEXTS. 

preaching  to  the  spirits  in  prison,  and  in  Romans,  vii.  17,  "  It 
is  no  more  I  that  do  it,  but  sin  that  dwelleth  in  me."  The 
obscurity  of  such  passages  is  not  always  invincible  ;  they 
often  contain  high  and  important  truths,  which  we  must  hold 
in  high  esteem  ;  they  open  a  vast  field  to  meditation ;  but 
yet  we  may  say  in  general,  that  we  are  not  to  prefer  such 
subjects  or  the  texts  which  express  them. 

In  vain  would  one  here  apply  the  word  :  "  These  things 
were  written  for  our  instruction,"  Romans,  xv.  41  ;  it  is  not 
applicable  to  everything.  Instruction  is  a  whole,  which  has 
its  remote  accessories.  We  are  not  to  preach  on  these  ac- 
cessories. 

What  must  be  done  when  the  obscurity  is  in  the  express- 
ion, in  which  I  comprehend  also  the  forms  of  reasoning  ?  It 
is  said,  that  the  minister  is  essentially  the  commentator  or 
interpreter  of  the  word  of  God,  and,  as  all  ought  to  read  it 
he  must  make  it  intelligible  to  all.  I  reply,  it  is  not  said 
that  the  whole  is  addressed  directly  to  all  readers  of  all 
times.  The  plain  man,  at  least,  will  not  comprehend  every- 
thing, and  will  not  believe  everything  which  may  be  ad- 
dressed to  him.  Undoubtedly,  the  teaching  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  does,  in  a  considerable  degree,  open  the  understandmg ; 
but  it  may  be  that  many  passages  whose  form  belongs  to 
another  age,  will  always  remain  obscure  to  some  of  the  read- 
ers of  our  day.  Edification  is  the  instruction  of  the  soul  ; 
and  it  is  not  incompatible  with  that  of  the  intellect ;  but 
though  we  must  give,  in  order  to  edification,  a  certain  meas- 
ure of  aliment  to  the  intellect,  too  much  labor  of  the  intel- 
lect is  manifestly  injurious  to  edification.  A  very  peculiar 
talent  is  necessary  to  our  being  permanently  edifying  on 

and  of  him  ;  he  will  render  them  immortal  as  eternity,  will  en- 
lighten them,  and  render  them  all  luminous  as  himself,  will  diffuse 
himself  among  them,  and  make  them  perfect  in  himself,  in  love." 
QuESNEL,  Reflexions  morales  sur  le  Nouveau  Testament. 


FEUITFUL  TEXTS.  137 

such  subjects  ;  much  indeed  is  necessary  to  our  being  as 
perspicuous  as  the  pulpit  demands.  "Let  every  man  ex- 
amine himself,"  1  Corinthians,  xi.  28. 

After  all,  as  to  such  texts,  the  whole  office  of  the  interpreter, 
perhaps,  is  to  show  that  they  are  obscure,  and  this  some- 
times is  the  best  service  we  can  render.     Examples  : 

Galatians,  iii.  20,  "A  mediator  is  not  of  one  :  but  God 


IS  one. 


"* 


Romans,  xii.  20,  "  Thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  on  his 
head." 

1  Timothy,  v.  24-25,  "  Some  men's  sins  are  open  before- 
hand, etc." 

Romans,  vii.  10,  "  The  commandment  which  was  ordained 
to  life  I  found  to  be  unto  death,  etc."  French  version  :  "  The 
commandment  which  was  given  me  for  life,  has  given  me 
death,  etc." 

Moreover,  obscure  texts  are  either  important  ones,  which 
may  be  replaced  by  others,  or  they  are  not  fruitful,  and  this 
almost  always  is  the  case.  We  may  then,  in  brief,  propose 
the  following  rule : 

Do  not  take  as  a  text  for  your  discourse,  an  obscure,  diffi' 
cult  passage,  or  one,  the  elucidation  of  which  will  require 
a  too  extended  preliminary  discussion.  There  may  be  an 
exception  to  this  rule,  when  the  text  which  is  chosen  contains 
an  important  truth  not  elsewhere  announced. 

IV. 

Choose  a  fruitful  text.  I  call  a  text  fruitful,  which,  without 
foreign  addition,  without  the  aid  of  minute  details,  without  dis- 
cussion, furnishes,  when  reduced  to  its  just  meaning,  matter 
for  a  development  interesting  in  all  its  parts,  and  which  leaves 
with  us  an  important  result.     Every  fruitful  text  will  be  also 

*  See  QuESNEL  on  this  passage. 


138  FKUITFUL  TEXTS. 

a  practical  text,  for  though  a  preacher  may  touch  upon  spec- 
ulative points,  he  must  always  do  this  with  a  practical  pur- 
pose, and  not  for  a  purely  philosophical  purpose. 

It  is  difficult  to  give  examples.  That  which  is  sterile  with 
some  is  productive  with  others,  and  vice  versd. 

Good  theological  studies,  meditation,  a  philosophical  habit 
of  mind,  may  discover  fertility  where  it  did  not  appear  at 
first.  He  who  seizes  the  relations  of  the  idea  to  other  ideas, 
its  affinities,  its  extended  bearings ;  he  who  knows  how  to 
generalize,  to  ascend  to  principles,  to  see  distant  consequences, 
makes  a  soil  productive  which  others  would  find  unfruitful. 
I  assume,  moreover,  that  the  preaching  is  to  be  textual ;  for 
the  embarrassment  would  be  small,  if  the  texts  were  to  be 
treated  only  after  manner  of  Catholics. 

But  it  will  be  said,  since  we  are  at  liberty  in  the  choice  of 
texts,  why  not  go  directly  to  those  which  are  manifestly  fruit- 
ful 1  In  the  first  place,  we  should  avoid  texts  which  have 
their  own  peculiar  merit,  a  character  of  their  own,  and  thus 
should  we  reduce  greatly  the  latitude  of  our  choice.  And 
then  it  is  very  probable  that  at  this  rate,  there  would  be 
very  few  fruitful  texts.  The  richest  are  at  last  rich  only  to 
a  meditative  mind.  Let  us  remark,  in  passing,  that  on  this 
account  especially,  it  is  very  useful  to  be  obliged  for  some 
time  to  treat  prescribed  texts,  and  to  be  at  all  times  willing 
that  they  should  be  prescribed. 

But  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  if  the  majority  are  impoesd 
upon  by  the  appearance  of  sterility,  others  are  deceived  by 
the  contrary  appearance. 

Every  striking,  attractive,  moving  word,  is  not  fruitful. 
Truths  at  the  extremity  or  the  summit,  are  not  as  fruitful 
as  those  which  are  at  the  point  of  departure  or  mid-way. 
They  simply  excite  emotion.  Examples — Colossians,  i.  16. 
Psalms  Ixiii.  25. 

Sometimes  a  salient  or  piquant  idea,  which  we  meet  with 


LIMITmG  THE   TEXT.  139 

in  a  text,  may  induce  a  youthful  imagination  to  treat  it ;  but 
this  text  presents  that  one  idea  only ;  all  the  rest  is  filled  with 
common-place. 

V. 

-# 
We  may,  in  certain  cases,  though  not  without  caution,  use 

in  the  body  of  our  discourse,  passages,  the  terms  of  which 
are  somewhat  repulsive,  but  we  must  not  take  them  as  texts 
for  our  sermons.     Example :  2  Peter,  ii.  12. 

With  passages  presenting  a  disagreeable  image,  I  class 
those  which  are  somewhat  odd  or  too  familiar ;  but  in  gen- 
eral, these  texts  relate  to  subjects  which  we  are  not  called  to 
treat. 

VI. 

We  have  nothing  to  say  on  the  dimensions  or  material  ex- 
tent of  the  text.  As  to  its  logical  extent,  we  recommend  in- 
tegrity and  unity. 

Claude  has  given  the  following  rule  :  "  The  text  must  con- 
tain the  complete  idea  of  the  writer  from  whom  it  is  bor- 
rowed ;  for  it  is  his  language,  they  are  his  sentiments,  which 
we  are  to  explain  to  our  hearers.  For  example,  if  we  take 
the  words  in  2  Corinthians,  i.  3,  4,  Blessed  be  God,  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father  of  mercy,  and 
the  God  of  all  comfort,  who  comforteth  us  in  all  our  afflic- 
tions, that  we  may  be  able  to  comfort  them  who  are  in  any 
trouble,  by  the  comfort  wherewith  we  ourselves  are  comforted  of 
God ;  and  stop  after  these  words,  the  God  of  all  comfort, 
we  have  a  complete  sense,  but  not  the  complete  sense  of  the 
apostle.  If  we  proceed  farther  and  add,  who  comforteth  us  in 
all  our  afflictions,  we  have  not  yet  the  complete  sense  of 
Saint  Paul ;  we  do  not  embrace  all  his  thoughts ;  we  must 
advance  to  the  end  of  the  fourth  verse.  When  the  idea  of 
the  sacred  author  is  embraced,  we  may  stop,  for  there  are  few 
texts  of  holy  scripture  that  do  not  fiirnish  the  matter  of  a 


140  LIMITING  THE  TEXT. 

sermon,  and  it  is  equally  bad  to  embrace  too  much  and  to 
embrace  too  little ;  we  must  avoid  both  extremes."* 

I  do  not  adopt  the  rule  of  Claude.  I  content  myself  with 
a  sense  complete  in  itself,  provided  it  be  conformed  to  the 
thoughts  of  the  sacred  writer. 

The  rule  of  Claude  would,  on  application,  defeat  itself,  by 
leading  us  to  embrace  a  sense  more  than  complete,  as  when, 
in  Saint  Paul,  for  example,  many  thoughts  are  linked  to  one 
another,  not  by  their  broadest  side,  but  by  their  extremity, 
by  their  terminal  points. f 

Even  when  it  is  not  so,  there  would  be  much  disadvantage 
in  not  being  at  liberty  to  take  for  separate  consideration  one 
of  the  propositions  of  which  a  period  is  composed. 

We  may  easily  find  cases  in  which  we  should  fail  to  obtain 
a  complete,  sufficient  sense,  if  we  did  even  go  quite  to  the 
conclusion  of  the  author's  sentence.  The  following  passages, 
I  think,  are  of  this  number  :  1  Corinthians,  xiii.  13  ;  ii.  9  ; 
Philippians,  ii.  12, 13 ;  iv.  6,  7. 

Is  not  even  the  passage  cited  by  Claude  one  of  these  ? 
Are  not  1  Timothy,  iv.  13-16  ;  Ephesians,  i.  7-10  ;  He- 
brews, xii.  1,  2,  and  Hebrews,  xii.  15,  of  the  same  class  ? 
The  rule  would  put  us  at  the  mercy  of  an  accident  of  speech, 
of  a  conjunction  (/or,  then^  and,)  of  nothing. — See  John,  xiv 
21.     It  would  interdict  certain  texts  which  are  formed  of 

*  Claude,  Traite  de  la  composition  du  sermon,  in  the  first  volume 
of  his  (Euvres  posthumes. 

\  Applied  to  writers  whose  style  is  grammatical,  this  rule  would 
be  unobjectionable  ;  but  such  are  not  the  writers  with  which  we 
have  to  do.  Their  periods  often  disregarded  the  law  of  rhetorical 
unity.  We  say  this  freely,  for  we  see  in  it  a  beauty,  inasmuch  as  it 
reveals  a  great  fulness  of  heart.  If  Paul  and  Peter  have  fallen  into 
a  fault  here  through  negligence,  yet  seeing  the  principle  of  their  ir- 
regularity, we  admire  and  are  silent.  In  each  of  their  thoughts 
their  charity  would  fain  have  embraced  all  the  thoughts  of  Chris- 
tianity, all  the  interests  of  tlieir  hearers. 


LIMITING  THE  TEXT.  141 

few  words,  suspended  in  the  sentence,  and  not  forming  a 
proposition,  as  Ephesians,  v.  10,  "  Proving  what  is  acceptable 
to  the  Lord,"  and  1  Peter,  v.  7,  "  Casting  your  care  on  him." 

An  important  idea,  very  suitable  as  the  subject  of  a  ser- 
mon, is  often  included  in  an  appendix  to  a  sentence.  Thus, 
1  Timothy,  i.  15,  "To  save  sinners,  o/  whom  I  am  chief y 
Romans,  i.  31,  "Without  understanding,  covenant-break- 
ers, without  natural  affection^  implacable,  unmerciful."  2 
Timothy,  iii.  3,  "  Without  natural  affection^  truce-breakers, 
false  accusers,  incontinent,  fierce,  despisers  of  them  that  are 
good."* 

The  rule  of  Claude  appears  to  me  vague  or  inapplica- 
ble. I  think  we  find  a  complete  sense  and  consequently  a 
text  in  every  series  of  words  from  which  an  attentive  mind 
can  draw  out  a  proposition,  and  which  is  adequate  in  itself ; 
that  is  to  say,  which  presents  a  true  sense  independently  of 
the  words  preceding  or  following. 

Doubtless  we  ought  to  examine  carefully  whether  the 
more  particular  ideas,  the  author's  additions  to  his  principal 
idea,  are  not  the  completion  of  it,  do  not  present  it  in  its  ful- 
ness of  light,  do  not  guard  it  against  ambiguity  or  preju- 
dice, f  etc.  We  oppose  only  the  rule  which  would  find,  in 
some  purely  accidental  circumstance,  the  limitation  of  a 
text. 

As  we  must  not  confound  texts  with  phrases  and  periods, 
nor  logical  unity  with  grammatical  unity,  neither  must  we 

*  I  do  not  reckon  in  this  number  the  words,  "  A  little  while,"  on 
which  Harms  made  a  sermon,  of  which  he  gives  the  plan  thus, 
"The  phrase,  a  little  while,  (uber  ein  Kleines,)  considered  in  its 
divine  energy,  1.  Cheers  the  afflicted.  2.  Maintains  joy  in  joyful 
hearts.  3.  Stimulates  dulness.  4.  Disturbs  indifference.  5.  Sus- 
tains us  in  conflict.     6.  Strengthens  us  in  death. 

f  See  the  examples  cited  above,  1  Corinthians,  ii.  9;  xiii.  13.  Phil- 
ippians,  ii.  12,  13,  iv.  6,  7. 


142  LIMITING  THE  TEXT. 

think  that  the  text  ends  where  the  grammatical  sense  ends, 
or  even  where  logical  unity  closes.  Many  logical  unities 
may,  together,  form  a  greater  unity  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to 
say  beforehand  and  in  an  absolute  manner,  what  are  the 
limits  of  a  true  text.  The  same  text  may  furnish  ten  ;  ten 
texts  may  make  one.  The  art  of  cutting  up  a  text,  the 
art  of  grouping  many  texts  into  one,  deserves  examination. 

Thus,  in  the  passage  in  Matthew,  v.  3-10,  each  beatitude 
forms  a  particular  text ;  but  we  may  also  unite  them  all  in  one 
text.  That  in  John,  iv.  31-38,  presents  three  traits  in  the 
character  of  Jesus  Christ ;  a  sublime  engagedness,  (he  for- 
gets to  eat,)  a  sublime  impatience,  (the  fields  are  white,)  a 
sublime  self-denial,  (one  sows  and  another  reaps.)  Of  the 
whole,  we  may  make  three  distinct  subjects. 

Doctor  Busch  treated  in  a  sermon  the  passage  in  Luke,  x. 
23-37.*  Here,  the  first  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  "Blessed  are 
the  eyes  which  see  the  things  that  ye  see,"  are  represented 
as  having  provoked  the  Pharisee's  question.  This  man's  er- 
ror was  connected  with  a  pure  intention.  Jesus  Christ  re- 
plied to  his  question  by  a  new  question.  To  the  Pharisee's 
answer,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God,  etc."  Jesus 
Christ  replied,  "Thou  hast  answered  well."  The  orator 
shows  that  the  Pharisee  had  indeed  answered  well.  But 
in  the  presence  and  under  the  infliience  of  Jesus  Christ, 
this  answer,  so  tranquillizing  in  appearance,  does  not  tran- 
quillize him.  Though  he  has  answered  well  as  to  the  law,  he 
doubts  still,  if  he  has  well  kept  the  law.  Seriously  desiring 
to  be  justified  before  God,  he  would  fulfil  the  precept  of  love 
to  our  neighbor,  in  the  manner  and  sense  required  by  God.f 

*  See  the  collection  of  sermons  by  various  authors,  published  by 
Fleidner  and  Leopoldt,  in  favor  of  the  Evangelical  Church,  of  Karls- 
buld  in  the  Donamoos,  under  the  title,  Ein  Herr,  Ein  Glauhe  Bar- 
men, 1837,  p.  852. 

f  As  to  the  first  commandment,  he  asked  no  question  ?     Why  ? 


LIMITING  THE  TEXT.  148 

Now  comes  the  story  of  the  Samaritan.  The  author  in- 
quires what  impression  this  story,  so  beautiful  always,  and 
for  every  one,  ought  to  have  made  on  this  man,  in  these 
circumstances.  Then  he  passes  to  the  Pharisee's  answer,  the 
expressions  of  which  he  weighs,  and  which  show,  as  he 
thinks,  that  his  heart  was  touched.  To  the  love  of  our  neigh- 
bor, his  heart  was  opened ;  but  this  love  implies  the  love  of 
God,  such  as  the  first  commandment  prescribes.  As  the 
Pharisee  had  not  yet  had  experience  of  such  a  love  of  his 
neighbor  as  this,  our  Lord  presents  it  to  him  in  a  fact,  and 
ends  by  recommending  him  to  reproduce  it.  There  is  then 
an  application  of  the  subject  to  ourselves,  who  have  need  of 
being  taught  the  same  thing  by  Jesus  Christ ;  and  finally, 
the  answer  to  this  objection :  since  truly  good  works  are  un- 
profitable to  us,  since,  of  course,  we  cannot  be  saved  by  our 
works,  how  is  this  to  be  reconciled  with  the  replies  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  the  Pharisee,  ^'•Thou  hast  answered  well;'''*  "Go, 
and  do  thou  likewise." 

Doctor  Julius  Muller's  Sermon  on  Matthew,  xvii.  1-18, 
may  be  also  cited  here.  "  The  recital  in  our  text,"  he  says, 
"  begins  by  the  relation  of  the  most  sublime  and  wonderful 
event  in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  his  transfiguration  on  a 
mountain  of  Galilee,  and  the  appearance  of  Moses  and  Elias, 
in  the  glorious  light  which  surrounded  him.  This  recital 
then  conducts  us  to  the  three  disciples  who  were  witnesses 
of  the  event,  describing  to  us  their  amazement  and  their  fear, 
and  gives  us  some  idea  of  the  holy  emotion  of  their  heart 
when  they  descended  from  the  mountain.  We  are,  finally, 
transported  into  the  midst  of  a  multitude  which  covers  the 
plain,  and  are  present  at  one  of  those  sad  spectacles  which 
human  sin  and  misery  afford.  Thus  our  history  descends,  so 
to  speak,  by  degrees,  from  the  shining  height  of  Christ's 
glory,  into  the  dark  valley  of  human  debasement.  We  are 
to  reverse  this  order  in  our  meditations  of  to-day.     Instead 


144  LIMITING  THE  TEXT. 

of  descending,  we  shall  rise,  and  we  shall  contemplate  three 
steps  of  the  Christian  life  ;  the  first,  that  of  doubt,  hesitation, 
and  perplexity  ;  the  second,  that  of  the  beatific  knowledge  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  of  entire  surrender  to  his  will ;  the  third, 
that  of  perfect  communion  with  Jesus  Christ."* 

We  must  not  hastily  ascribe  two  meanings  to  texts  which 
better  considered,  show  a  unity  that  could  not  fail  to  have 
been  in  the  intentions  of  the  sacred  writer,  who  would  not 
unite  two  things  without  knowing  why.  We  must  seek  out 
this  unity.  I  have  cited  already  1  Thessalonians,  v.  15,  and 
Ephesiaus,  iv.  28.  In  1  Timothy,  ii.  8,  "  I  will  that  men 
pray  everywhere,  lifting  up  holy  hands,  without  wrath  and 
doubting,"  the  common  thought  is,  advice  given  to  the  per- 
secuted, to  oppose  prayer  to  the  evils  which  they  suffer. 
This  thought  is  not  expressed  directly ;  but  if  it  was  not  present 
to  the  apostle's  mind,  he  at  least  wrote  under  its  influence. 
Tholuck  has  inquired  for  the  apostle's  unity  of  intention  in 
Hebrews,  xii.  14 :  "  Follow  peace  with  all  men,  and  holiness, 
without  which  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord."  "  There  are,"  he 
says,  "  three  things  in  our  text.  Two  exhortations,  and  a 
threatening,  which  may  also  be  understood  as  a  promise,  (a 
threatening  to  some,  a  promise  to  others.)  The  apostle  cer- 
tainly would  not  have  combined  these  two  exhortations,  one 
to  peace,  the  other  to  holiness,  if  he  had  not  regarded  holiness 
as  the  root  of  that  peace,  which  he  recommends  us  to  maintain 
with  all  men."f  We  may  find  the  unity  of  the  text  in  an- 
other idea:  ^'' Peace  without  prejudice  to  holiness.''''  According 
to  him,  "  Peace  by  means  of  holiness."  See  also  James,  i.  17. 
(Comp.  1  Corinthians,  iv.  20.) 

*  Ein  Herr,  ein  Glauhe,  a  collection  of  sermons  by  various  authors 
published  by  Fleidner  and  Leopoldt,  p.  108. 

*  Tholuck,  Akademische  Fredigten,  2^  Sammung. 


VAKYING  TEXTS.  145 

VII. 

We  add  some  other  rules  to  those  which  we  have  already 
give*i. 

It  is  proper  to  vary  texts.  We  are  struck  at  the  constant 
recurrence  of  certain  texts,  as  if  the  generality  of  preachers 
considered  themselves  as  under  obligations  to  repeat  them. 
Doubtless,  there  are  some  which,  by  their  importance,  should 
draw  the  attention  of  all ;  but  there  is,  nevertheless,  another 
thing  of  importance,  and  of  more  serious  importance  than  at 
first  we  may  suppose,  that  we  do  not  allow  a  sort  of  traditional 
monotony  to  have  place  in  the  choice  of  texts.  The  use  of  a 
new  text  imparts  novelty  to  the  same  subject.  Upon  the 
same  subject  there  are  ordinarily  texts  of  three  kinds,  out 
of  which  we  may  make  our  choice  :  didactic,  or  sententious 
texts ;  historical  texts  ;  and  texts  which  may  be  called  ejacu- 
latory.     We  cite  some  examples  of  the  last. 

Psalm  xlii.  3,  "  When  shall  I  come  and  appear  before 
God !" 

Psalm  Ixxxiv.  4,  "  Thine  altars  O  Lord  of  Hosts,  my  King 
and  my  God !" 

Psalm  xxiv.  9,  "  Everlasting  doors  be  ye  lifted  up,  and 
the  king  of  glory  shall  come  in." 

Psalm  vi.  4,  "  But  thou  O  Lord  how  long  f 

Psalm  Ixxiii.  19,  "  How  are  they  brought  into  desolation 
as  in  a  moment !" 

Micah,  vi.  6,  "  Wherewith  shall  I  bow  myself  before  the 
High  God !" 

Eomans,  vii.  24,  "  O  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall 
deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this  death !" 

1  Corinthians,  xv.  55,  "  O  death  where  is  thy  sting  V 

Another  rule,  as  important  as  it  is  neglected,  is  that  texts 
be  individual.  All  other  things  being  equal,  of  two  texts, 
that  which  shall  be  most  in  accordance  with  our  individuality 
is  much  to  be  preferred. 

7 


146  OF  HOMILY  AND  PAEAPHKASE. 

May  we  invert  in  the  sermon  the  order  of  the  parts  of  a 
text?  Without  doubt  we  may,  and  in  some  cases  must. 
Preachers  have  frequently  done  it.  Our  discourse,  however, 
must  not  invert  the  order  of  the  parts  of  the  text,  except 
w^here  it  is  evidently  necessary.  "  The  chief  thing  in  our 
worship,"  says  Bossuet,  "is  that  we  have  just  sentiments 
toward  God,  and  that  we  believe  him  to  be  what  he  is.  It  is 
the  effect  of  this  belief  that  we  purify  our  intentions  in  his 
presence,  and  that  we  order  ourselves  as  he  requires.  Thus 
the  essence  of  religion  is  contained  in  these  two  words,  (in 
spirit  and  in  truth,)  and  I  pray  my  Saviour  to  forgive  me, 
while,  in  order  to  aid  your  understanding,  I  begin  the  explan- 
ation with  that  which  it  pleased  him  to  announce  last."* 

Finally,  to  the  question  whether  we  may  prefix  two  texts  to 
a  sermon,  we  simply  reply  that  as  a  rule,  we  are  to  preach 
on  one  passage  of  scripture,  but  that  nothing  forbids,  if  need 
be,  that  we  combine  two  passages  to  make  one  text.  This  is 
sometimes  done  with  great  advantage  and  propriety. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OF  HOMILY  AND  PAEAPHRASE. 

All  that  we  have  said  thus  far,  appears  to  relate  only  to 
Synthetic  discourse,  and  even  to  assume  that  this  alone  is  the 
legitimate  kind. 

In  truth,  all  the  rules  we  have  given,  whether  as  to  subjects 
or  texts,  involve  the  idea  that  the  whole  sermon  rests  on  one 
proposition. 

It  is  of  course  necessary,  when  we  do  not  find  this  propo- 

*  B088UET,  Sermon  sur  le  Culte  du  a  Dieu.  (Euvres  Edition  Le- 
fevre,  1836,  tome,  iv.,  p.  162. 


OF  HOMILY  AND  PAEAPHEASE.  147 

sition  contained  implicitly  in  the  text,  to  collect  in  one  point 
the  more  or  less  scattered  and  divergent  elements,  to  con- 
dense them  so  as  to  form  only  that  one  proposition  of  which 
we  have  spoken. 

But  are  not  the  two  kinds  of  preaching  which  are  known 
under  the  name  of  Paraphrase  and  Homily^  to  follow  the  con- 
trary method  ?  Is  not  the  method  here  that  of  an  analysis, 
instead  of  a  synthesis  ?  To  this  question  I  reply  as  fol- 
lows: 

The  method  is  both  analytic  and  synthetic,  and  the  combi- 
nation of  these  two  methods  is  not  exclusively  proper  to  the 
homily.  The  synthetic  sermon,  if  we  examine  it  closely,  an- 
alyzes the  text,  and  in  this  analysis,  finds  its  whole  division. 
This  was  the  almost  constant  way  of  the  French  Reformed 
preachers  before  Dubosc.  They  spelled,  if  we  may  so  speak, 
the  biblical  word.  Still,  as  these  analyses  were  not  generally 
employed  on  very  extended  texts,  their  discourses  pass  for 
sermons  and  not  homilies.  We  may  at  least  say  that  they 
mark  the  transition,  or  hold  the  intermediate  place  between 
the  sermon  and  the  homily.  These  three  forms  are  but  three 
degrees  of  the  analytic  method,  which  abounds  and  triumphs 
in  the  homily.  But  in  all  the  three,  analysis  is  but  the  pre- 
liminary and  means  of  synthesis,  in  which  it  must  always 
end. 

Even  paraphrase  is  admissible  only  on  this  condition.  In 
the  strictness  of  its  ideas,  it  is  only  discourse  parallel  to  that 
of  the  sacred  author,  a  continuous  explication  of  the  text, 
an  explication  to  the  extent  of  which  there  is  no  precise 
limit.  We  find  in  Massillon  more  than  one  example  of  it.* 
If  we  consult  the  nature  of  the  human  mind,  I  think  we  shall 
feel  that  it  demands  combination  after  analysis  and  the  giving 
of  some  connexion,  the  connexion  of  a  common  idea,  to  the  ele- 
ments which  we  have  successively  gathered.     I  know  indeed, 

*  Among  others,  see  tome  viii.,  p.  59,  de  1'  edition  Meqnignon,  12mo. 


148  HOMILY. 

that  if  the  connexion  is  very  loose  the  unity  is  scarcely  more 
than  nominal.  The  nature  of  existence,  is  ultimately  a  unit- 
ing bond  of  the  most  opposite  ideas. 

Dismissing  paraphrase  and  confining  ourselves  to  homily, 
we  say,  that  if  it  is  not  as  greatly  different  from  the  ordinary 
sermon  as  we  commonly  suppose,  it  yet  has  a  character  of 
its  own.  This  character  belongs  to  it,  not  only  from  its  hav- 
ing to  do  most  frequently  with  recitals,  or  from  any  familiarity 
peculiar  to  this  kind  of  discourse,  but  rather  from  this,  that 
its  chief  business,  its  principal  object,  is  to  set  in  relief  the 
successive  parts  of  an  extended  text,  subordinating  them  to 
its  contour,  its  accidents,  its  chances,  if  we  may  so  speak 
more  than  can  be  done  in  the  sermon,  properly  so  called. 

Nothing  distinguishes,  essentially,  the  homily  from  the 
sermon,  except  the  comparative  predominance  of  analysis  ; 
in  other  terms,  the  prevalence  of  explanation  over  system. 
All  that  we  have  said  of  the  sermon  generally  applies,  then, 
to  the  homily.  The  difficulty  as  to  unity,  presented  by  this 
kind  of  discourse,  never  amounts  to  impossibility.  We  do 
not  at  random  cut  from  the  general  text  of  the  sacred  books, 
the  particular  text  of  a  homily.  The  selection  is  not  arbi- 
trary. The  limit  of  the  text  is  pre-determined  by  reference 
to  unity,  which  therefore  we  shall  be  at  no  loss  to  discover 
in  it.  *  The  only  danger  is  that  unity  of  subject  will  be  re- 
linquished, as  the  thread  of  a  path  may  be  buried  and  lost 
beneath  an  intertwined  and  tufted  vegetation.  There  is, 
doubtless,  an  art  of  analysing.  To  analyze  is  not  only  to 
sift,  to  disjoin,  it  is  at  the  same  time  to  tie  ;  to  preserve  or 
mark  articulations,  to  respect  the  life  of  the  text,  to  develop 
rather  than  decompose  it.  Amidst  all  the  lines  which  cross, 
interlace,  or  shade  each  other  in  a  recital  or  a  parable,  we 

*  When  one  takes,  like  Luther,  two  recitals,  (Matthew,  viii.  1-13,) 
because  one  follows  the  other,  he  can  find  no  unity,  because  none 
was  aimed  at. 


HOMILY.  149 

must  detect  and  seize  the  chief  line,  the  mother-idea,  cast 
aside  or  throw  into  half-light,  in  a  second  plan,  that  which 
is  less  important,  that  which  forms  an  integrant  part  of  the 
recital,  without  forming  an  integrant  part  of  the  instruction 
which  it  was  intended  to  afford.  We  must  also  proportion 
the  development  of  each  trait  to  its  measure  of  importance, 
not  allowing  ourselves  to  pursue  this  or  that  detail,  though 
attractive,  and  often  of  serious  interest,  which  on  another  oc- 
casion it  might  not  be  well  to  resume  and  treat  by  itself ; 
we  must  not  course  two,  much  less  three  hares  at  once :  The 
more  important  the  ideas  which  have  been  gathered,  the 
more  wearied  and  dissipated  does  the  mind  become,  as 
each  one  of  them  offers  it  a  strong  temptation.  * 

I  assume  that  preachers  are  left  at  liberty  in  the  choice  of 
texts  ;  if  they  are  not,  and  a  prescribed  pericope  does  not  of 
itself  offer  sufficient  unity,  I  should  prefer  neglecting  it  alto- 
gether, to  obtaining  it  by  force.  It  is  however  seldom  that 
a  common  vinculum  does  not  present  itself  f 

As  the  preacher  appears  to  be  more  sustained  by  his  text, 
in  the  homily  than  in  the  synthetic  sermon,  the  former  is 
thought  to  be  more  easy  of  execution.     And  it  certainly  is 

*  Ammon,  Anldtung  zur  KanzelberedsamJceit,  p.  10*7,  cites  the  exam- 
ple of  a  homily  on  Matthew,  xiv,  1-10,  "Which,"  he  says,  "loses  part 
of  its  interest  by  the  aco«mulation  of  the  following  subjects  :  1. 
Transition  from  debauchery  to  cruelty.  2.  Of  the  duty  of  boldly 
declaring  the  truth.  3.  Female  resentment.  4.  The  secret  terror  with 
which  defenceless  virtue  inspires  bad  men  in  power.  5.  The  incon- 
sistency of  bad  men.  Unity,"  adds  Ammon,  "  should  never  be  sacri- 
ficed even  in  homily,  and  it  is  unjust  to  this  kind  of  preaching  that 
a  want  of  unity  should  be  made  its  distinctive  mark." 

See,  as  examples  of  homilies,  Celerrier  on  2  Samuel,  ii.  1-7,  {Homi- 
lies, tome  i.,  p.  210,)  and  Rochet,  Us  Anges  loges  chez  Abraham,  Dis- 
courses et  Meditations,  p.  223. 

f  See  the  example  cited  by  Ammon,  Anleitwig  zur  Kanzelberedsam- 
keit,  p.  108,  note  1. 


150  HOMILY. 

more  easy  to  make  a  homily  than  a  sermon,  but  a  good  ser- 
mon is  made  with  more  facility  than  a  good  homily.  The  great 
masters  in  the  art  of  preaching,  Bourdaloue  for  example  * 
have  not  succeeded  in  homily. 

The  most  excellent  judges  in  the  matter  of  preaching  have 
recommended  the  homily. 

Fenelon.  "  Would  you  have  a  preacher  explain  the  holy 
Scriptures  consecutively  and  litterally  1  Yes,  this  would  be 
admirable."! 

Herder.  "  After  preaching  ceased  to  be  what  it  was  in  the 
mouths  of  the  Apostles,  a  message,  properly  so  called,  it  be- 
came an  exposition  of  the  Word  of  God,  of  the  apostolic 
writings,  of  their  doctrine,  and  an  application  to  the  silent  and 
assembled  flock,  of  all  which  had  just  been  read.  It  was 
called  homily^  and  was  in  fact,  neither  a  harangue  nor  a  dis- 
course. In  my  view  the  exposition  of  Scripture  is  the  highest 
and  best  kind  of  preaching,  especially  in  our  time  ;  and  in 
particular,  I  regard  it  as  the  best  and  safest  mode  for  young 
persons."J 

Dutoit  Memhrini.  "  It  is  much  to  be  desired  that  this  kind 
of  preaching  were  more  general.  We  would  have  a  consecu- 
tive exposition  of  the  Word  of  God,  and  not  a  tissue  of 
human  reasonings  to  which  the  text  is  accommodated. 
The  discourses  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  were  homi- 
lies. Homilies  made  in  good  taste,  and  by  men  capable  of 
making  them,  would  be  extremely  useful.     We  take  a  pas- 

*  Example  :  Homily  on  the  'tnan  horn  blind,  (tome  ii.,  p,  239,  de 
Tedition  le  Fevre  ;)  of  which  this  is  the  plan  :  1.  The  blindness  of  the 
Pharisees.  2.  The  sincere,  noble,  convincing  testimony  of  the 
blind  man.  A  discourse  of  this  kind  is  more  a  sermon  than  a 
homily. 

f  Fenelon,  Dialogues  sur  V eloquence,  dialogue  III.,  toward  the  end. 

X  Herder,  Brief c  uhcr  das  Studiwn  der  Theologie,  43.  Brief,  tome 
ii.,  p.  19-24,  de  I'edition  de  Carlsruhe,  1829. 


HOMILY.  151 

sage  of  Scripture  and  explain  it  in  its  connexion  ;  we  unfold 
its  interior  sense  ;  a  multitude  of  ideas  enter,  and  come,  as  it 
were,  in  file;  a  number  of  duties  are  explained  in  few  words.* 
It  is  a  way  of  preaching  more  pithy,  more  scriptural,  more 
Christian.  We  thus  teach  the  people  how  to  read  the  Scrip- 
ture ;  we  explain  it  to  them  ;  we  show  the  connexion  be- 
tween ideas  which  at  first  seemed  to  have  little  relation  to 
each  other.  We  also  adhere  more  closely  to  the  true  Word 
of  God."t 

Aminon. — "  Homilies  are  suited  to  make  the  Bible  under- 
stood, which  is  always  little  known ;  they  facilitate  the  ap- 
plication of  its  principles  to  private  and  public  life ;  the  sim- 
plicity and  variety  by  which  they  are  characterized,  give  them  a 
more  general  and  lasting  effect  on  the  majority  of  the  hear- 
ers ;  they  also  excite  the  preacher  himself  to  a  more  con- 
nected and  profound  study  of  men  and  of  the  documents  of 
our  religion.  On  the  other  hand,  they  have  the  inconvenience 
of  cramping  the  free  course  of  the  preacher's  thoughts,  of  di- 
viding the  attention  by  proposing  to  it  too  great  a  variety  of 
subjects,  and  by  leaving  too  little  space  for  the  development 
and  application  of  a  particular  truth."]; 

Scholl — "  In  the  homily,  the  word  of  God  is  more  com- 
pletely the  basis  and  the  clue  of  discourse.  This  kind  of 
preaching  includes  naturally  and  without  effort,  a  greater  va- 
riety in  teaching,  and  is  thus  better  adapted  to  the  various 
wants  of  souls.  It  is  opposed  to  that  uniformity  in  the  choice 
of  subjects,  and  the  exclusive  tendencies  to  which  preachers 
are  too  much  inclined.  It  is  more  suited  to  give  the  knowl- 
edge of  holy  scripture,  both  as  a  whole  and  in  its  details — ^to 
inspire  a  taste  for  meditation  in  this  Divine  Word,  and  to 

*  An  advantage  -which  touches  very  closely  a  disadvantage. 
f  DuTOiT  Membrini,  Philosophic  chretienne,  Discours  preliminaire, 
p.  89.  "       - 

t  Ammon,  Ardeitung  zur  Kanzelberedmmkeit,  p.  111. 


152  HOMILY. 

teach  those  who  study  it,  to  read  it  with  understanding,  with 
reflection,  and  always  with  direct  and  personal  application." 
In  short. — This  method  has  not  all  the  advantages  of  the 
synthetic  method,  and  it  is  susceptible  of  abuse  more  or  less 
hurtful.  Ammon  has  just  shown  us  this.  But  the  want  of 
certain  advantages,  and  the  possibility  of  certain  abuses,  are 
not  faults.  The  other  method  also  has  not  all  the  advantages 
which  we  may  imagine ;  neither  is  it  a  security  against  all 
the  abuses  which  we  fear.  The  recommendations  of  the  Hom- 
ily are  these : 

1.  It  explains  and  honors  holy  scripture. 

2.  It  is  intelligible  to  a  greater  number,  and  gives  pleasure 
to  all,  by  substituting  more  vivid  tints  for  the  sober  ones  of 
abstraction. 

3.  It  opposes  the  exclusive  tendency  to  which  preachers 
are  but  too  much  inclined. 

4.  It  secures  more  variety  than  the  synthetic  kind  of 
preaching. 


SECTION  SECOND. 

MATTER  OF  PULPIT  DISCOURSE. 

The  chapter  of  our  Course  on  the  text,  may  be  considered 
as  a  simple  appendix  to  the  preceding  one  on  the  subject. 
Thus  far,  we  have  treated  only  of  the  subject  of  the  sermon. 
We  now  enter  on  the  consideration  of  the  matter  of  the  ser- 
mon. The  matter  is  to  the  subject  what  the  edifice  is  to  the 
foundation.  The  subject  is  the  proposition,  the  matter  is  the 
development  of  it,  the  very  substance  of  the  discourse,  the 
pulp  of  the  fruit. 

The  order  we  follow  in  our  course  is  not  necessarily  that 
which  the  thought  of  the  preacher  follows.  We  advance 
from  the  subject  to  the  matter.  In  the  preparation  of  his 
discourse,  he  may  go  from  the  matter  to  the  subject,  that  is 
to  say,  he  may  be  led  to  the  mention  of  his  subject  by  the 
mention  of  the  leading  ideas  of  his  sermon ;  his  subject  may 
be  the  summary,  the  conclusion  of  them.  And  in  this  case, 
it  would  seem  that  his  discourse  should  be  an  explanation  of 
the  manner  in  which  he  arrived  at  this  conclusion. 

It  is  possible  that  this  form,  in  certain  cases,  would  be  the 
most  happy,  the  most  persuasive.  It  is  the  form  of  some  of 
Pascal's  pieces. 

We  should  be  mistaken,  however,  if  we  should  think  that 
the  sermon  may  ordinarily  be  a  confession  or  a  disquisition. 
The  road  by  which  the  preacher  arrives  at  his  personal  con- 
victions, may  not  be  necessarily  that  which  he  will  take 
with  his  hearers.  Let  us  regard  reality  ;  let  us  take  what, 
on  the  whole,  is  the  position  of  the  minister  generally. 

7* 


154  MATTER  OF  PULPIT  DISCOURSE. 

He  has  before  him  a  truth  which  to  him  is  certain,  and 
which  it  is  his  business  to  explain  and  prove  to  others ;  in  a 
word,  he  pursues  the  same  order  that  we  have  done  in  our 
course ;  he  goes  not  from  the  matter  to  the  subject,  but  from 
the  subject  to  the  matter. 

To  accomplish  his  purpose,  he  may  use  not  only  another 
order,  but  other  means  than  those  by  which  he  himself  was 
instructed  and  convinced.  The  way  which  leads  us  to  faith 
is  providential.  God  uses  means  which  we  often  despise. 
Having  arrived  at  the  end,  would  we  take  others  through  all 
the  turnings  and  windings  by  which  God  has  led  us  ? 

As  preachers,  we  are  to  place  ourselves  in  a  more  general 
point  of  view.  We  ought  to  consider  what  in  our  experi- 
ence is  human.  We  should  use  means  suited  to  the  major- 
ity, even  means  which  have  had  no  effect  on  ourselves.  The 
definitive  secret  of  conversion  always  escapes  us.  Often  a 
man  is  converted  by  the  most  feeble  instrumentality.  In  the 
conversion  of  two  men,  it  is  impossible  that  there  should 
have  been  no  means  in  common ;  but  there  may  be  also  great 
differences. 

When  we  speak  of  explaining  and  proving,  it  is  not  be- 
cause we  think  there  should  be  sermons  of  explanation,  in 
which  there  is  no  proof,  and  sermons  of  proof  to  which  there 
is  no  explanation.  A  sermon,  whatever  may  be  its  kind,  re- 
solves itself  always  into  demonstration,  and  a  demonstration 
never  has  place  without  a  formal  or  indirect  explanation ;  I 
mean  to  say,  that  every  demonstration  rests  upon  a  foregoing 
explanation. 

,     To  give  knowledge,  to  produce  faith,  is  the  two-fold  task 
of  the  preacher  in  every  sermon. 

I  say  more :  it  is  not  always  easy  to  distinguish  or  to  sep 
arate  one  of  these  things  from  the  other.  To  inform  is  often 
to  convince ;  to  explain  is  to  prove ;  to  show  is  to  demon 
strate. 


EXPLICATION  AND    PROOF.  155 

Formal  demonstration  has  had  preference — demonstration, 
which  takes  advantage  of  one  of  our  admissions,  in  order  to 
wrest  others  from  us.  The  truth  is  not  presented  to  us  as  a 
thing  which  we  may  acknowledge  at  the  first  view,  and  to 
which  the  best  parts  of  our  being  spontaneously  subscribe ; 
the  address  is  not  made  to  that  spirit  of  which  it  is  said, 
(Matthew,  xxvi.  41,)  that  it  is  willing.*  The  nature  and  force 
of  truth  is  not  sufficiently  tested. 

Demonstration  itself,  when  we  choose  this  way,  has  a  true 
force  of  persuasion  only  in  proportion  as  the  demonstrative 
process  presents  to  us  the  truth.  The  vivid  representation 
of  objects  is  the  principal  force,  the  life  of  eloquence. 

These  two  elements,  then,  must  fuse  themselves  into  one 
another.  But  in  our  course,  we  are  obliged  to  .distinguish 
them.  And  this,  the  more,  since  the  preacher  is  essentially 
an  expounder,  interpreter,  reporter,  and  this  is  a  distinct  and 
principal  part  of  his  mission. 

We  distinguish  then,  in  the  Sermon,  Explication  and  Proof. 

And  ill  each  of  these,  we  distinguish  again.  For  explica- 
tion comprehends  facts  and  ideas.  Facts  are  either  success- 
ive, and  are  related,  {^narration,)  or  they  are  simultaneous,  and 
are  described,  [description.)    Ideas  are  defined  and  expounded. 

Thus  as  to  Explication.  As  to  proof  it  embraces  specula- 
tive truths  and  practical  truths,  (doctrines  and  duties.)  With 
the  first  it  employs  reasons  ;  with  the  second,  motives. 

These  are  all  the  elements  of  the  sermon.  We  make  here  a 
sort  of  chemical  decomposition  of  discourse.  Hereafter,  under 
the  head  of  Disposition^  when  treating  of  its  parts  as  in  juxta- 
position or  succession,  we  shall  proceed  to  its  physical  de- 
composition. Now,  we  speak  of  combined  parts  or  elements, 
which  have  no  distinctive  places  assigned  to  them  in  the  dis- 
course, any  more  than  have  the  blood  and  the  flesh  in  the 
human  body. 

*  Prompt — Fr. 


166  EXPLICATION   OF  FACTS. 


CHAPTEE  I. 

OF  EXPLICATION. 
§   1.    Explication  of  facts. 

Antecedent  to  the  two  kinds  of  explication  which  I  have 
indicated,  narration  and  description^  there  is  another  peculiar 
to  pulpit  discourse  ;  this  is  exegesis^  or  the  explication  of  the 
text,  verbal  explication  with  the  necessary  historical  elucida- 
tion. 

A  sermon  may,  in  certain  cases,  be  only  an  exegesis,  en- 
livened by  affecting  sentiment  and  a  practical  application. 
But  taking  the  word  in  its  ordinary  signification,  what  place 
may  exegesis  hold  in  the  teaching  of  the  pulpit  ?  A  place 
narrower  than  it  had  in  the  practice  of  Saurin,  but  more  ex- 
tended, perhaps,  than  that  which  it  has  in  the  general  preach- 
ing of  the  present  day.  Though  discussions  of  this  kind 
little  suit  the  pulpit,  certain  results  may  be  indicated  there ; 
and  it  would  not  be  amiss,  if  preaching  gradually  imparted 
to  believers  such  comments  as  are  necessary  to  their  read- 
ing the  Bible  with  advantage.* 

As  to  Explication^  we  comprise  in  it  not  only  the  decom- 
position of  facts  or  the  enumeration  of  their  parts,  whether 
in  time  or  in  space,  but  also  the  indication  of  the  relations 
which  bind  their  different  parts  together,  the  why  with  the 
how.  In  this,  I  admit,  we  touch  on  the  proofs,  or  rather  the 
proof  enters  into  the  explication,  but  explication  is  always 
the  object.     We  have  to  make  known  that  which  has  been, 

*  See  Saurin,  Sermon  sur  les  devotions  passageres,  tome  ii.,  p.  110. 
Nouvelle  edition. 


EXPLICATION   OF   FACTS.  157 

that  which  is,  or  that  which  shall  be.  Under  the  name  of 
facts,  we  include  whatever  has  a  determinate  place  in  time 
and  space,  facts  of  the  moral  order  as  well  as  others. 

Let  us  first  take  narration.  It  forms  an  essential  part  of 
the  discoure  of  the  bar.*  The  advocate  has  first  to  present 
facts,  and  this  is  a  part  of  his  work  in  which  he  may  use  the 
most  art,  and  display  the  most  skill.  He  presents  facts 
which  are  either  little  known,  or  ill  known,  and  which,  in 
all  cases,  have  not  been  before  related.  The  preacher  shows 
wisdom  in  reasoning  on  known  facts. 

Narration,  nevertheless,  may  become  an  integrant  and 
even  considerable  part  of  the  discourse.  Witness  the  dis- 
courses of  Stephen  and  the  first  apostles.  (Funeral  Oration 
— Description  of  an  Epoch  of  the  Church.)  As  to  the  re- 
presentation of  simultaneous  facts,  or  description^  it  is  less 
frequently  the  object  of  the  sermon,  than  the  form  of  certain 
ideas,  which  constitute  part  of  the  sermon.  Still,  sometimes 
it  necessarily  has  its  place  in  pulpit  discourse ;  thus  in  de- 
picting the  manners  and  customs  of  a  certain  epoch,  or  in 
the  representation  of  a  certain  condition  of  man  and  of  so- 
ciety, recital  becomes  the  fixed  character  of  the  discourse. 

But  still,  even  where  narration  and  description  form  an 
integrant  portion  of  the  discourse  and  appertain  to  the  sub- 
ject, they  perform,  most  frequently,  a  subordinate  part. 
Ideas  are  the  ground  of  pulpit  discourse.  No  relation,  no 
description  of  contingent  facts  is  admissible,  except  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  immutable  truths.  The  same  cannot 
be  said  of  history  in  an  absolute  sense.  Without  applying  to 
it,  as  M.  de  Barante  has  done,  the  remark  of  Quintilian, 
Scrihitur  ad  narrandum  non  ad  'probandum*  we  may  yet 
say,  that  in  history,  recitation  holds  the  highest  place,  that 

*  See  les  playdoyers  de  Cochin,  de  Loyseau  de  Mauleon. 
\  Quintilian,  lib.  x.,  cap.  1. 


158  EXPLICATION   OF  IDEAS. 

the  historian's  first  object  is  ad  narrandum.  It  is  not  thus 
with  the  orator  ;  he  writes  only  to  prove.  This  suggests  a 
remark,  which  will  be  presented  hereafter,  under  another 
aspect.  It  is  that  the  extent  of  narration  and  description  is 
restricted,  and  their  form  modified,  by  the  purpose  and  gen- 
eral character  of  the  sermon.  Oratorical  force  perpetuates 
itself  through  all  the  incidents  of  the  matter,  and  narration 
or  description  is  ordinarily  only  an  incident.  This  axiom 
governs  the  whole.  We  may  convince  ourselves  of  this,  by 
observing  how  the  masters  of  the  art  have  narrated  and 
described.* 

Narration  and  description  may  be  fused  into  one  another ; 
but  the  second  often  takes  the  form  of  the  first,  which  is  more 
oratorical,  f 

Narration  and  description  have  their  respective  advantages. 
One  has  more  of  vivacity  and  movement ;  the  other  incorpor- 
ates all  homogeneous  elements. 

We  must  not  forget,  that  narration  and  description,  in 
evangelical  discourse,  are  in  general  auxiliary  or  subsidiary. 
They  are  only  indirectly  matter  of  the  sermon.  They  are 
elements  and  materials  for  demonstration. 

§  2. — Explication  of  Ideas. 

Let  us  be  understood,  as  to  the  meaning  which  we  attach 
to, the  word  idea.  In  general,  an  idea  is  a  view  of  the  mind, 
the  view  of  a  very  particular  fact  as  well  as  any  thing  else. 
It  is  the  fact  reflected  in  the  mind,  the  object  in  the  subject. 

*  See  Saumn,  Sur  les  Malheiirs  de  VEurope,  tome  viii.,  pages  332 
et  835,  nouvelle  edition ;  Massillon,  Sur  le  Jugement  ttniversel, 
tome  i.,  p.  33,  edition  Cefevre,  1823  ;  Sur  la  Verite  de  la  Religion, 
(la  fin.,)  tome  i.,  p.  145;  Sur  leu  tentations  des  grands,  depuis :  "Sa 
gloire  Sire,"  tome  i.,  p.  565. 

f  See  Massillon,  Sur  la  Divinete  de  Jesus  Christ,  tome  i.,  page  95, 
colonne  1,  edition  Lefevre. 


EXPLICATION   OF   IDEAS.  159 

It  will  be  seen  that  we  spoke  of  ideas,  thus  regarded,  in  the 
preceding  paragraph,  in  so  far  as  it  is  the  object  of  narrar 
tion  and  description  to  give  an  idea  of  facts. 

But  we  are  henceforth  to  take  the  word  idea  in  another 
sense.  We  have  now  to  do  not  with  an  intellectual  view  of 
concrete  facts;  but  with  purely  intellectual  elements  by 
means  of  which  we  form  this  idea,  or  obtain  this  view  for 
ourselves,  and  without  which  we  cannot  obtain  it. 

Idea,  in  this  sense,  has  no  definite  relation  to  time  and 
space,  although  it  may  have  been  detached  or  abstracted  from 
a  multitude  of  similar  facts  accomplished  in  time  and  space; 
it  is  their  common  law,  it  is  a  generic  fact ;  it  is,  in  every 
proposition  (for  an  idea  does  not  exist  apart  from  a  propo- 
sition), an  attribute  separated  from  every  subject,  an  attri- 
bute in  a  substantive  form.  "  The  world  is  great  "— "  great- 
ness."    Time  and  space  are  no  longer  anything. 

When  we  say  The  ivorld  is  great,  or  when  we  apply  the 
epithet  great  to  the  substantive  world,  must  we  already  have 
the  idea  of  greatness  ?  Undoubtedly.  It  is  true  we  may  say, 
that  this  idea  is  not  conceived  before  the  objects,  or  before  their 
impressions  on  us.  Without  these  objects,  without  the  impress- 
ions which  we  have  received,  it  could  not  have  been  conceiv- 
ed any  more  than  the  idea  of  a  quality.  A  quality,  a  man- 
ner of  existence,  presupposes  existence.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  impossible  that  objects  and  sensations  should  beget 
in  the  human  mind  any  general  idea,  if  there  be  not  in  it 
something  anterior,  which  we  will  call  not  idea,  but  form  or 
category,  which  external  impressions  do  not  create,  but  of 
which  they  give  us  the  perception.  However,  it  may  be  in 
respect  to  these  anterior  forms,  it  remains  certain,  that  in 
whatever  way  we  acquire  general  ideas,  it  is  impossible  for  us 
without  these  ideas,  without  ideas,  to  draw  anything  from  facts 
whether  for  thought  or  for  life.  It  is  by  means  of  ideas,  that 
we  judge,  measure,  apply  facts.     A  fact  never  has  a  form  or 


160  EXPLICATION  OF   IDEAS. 

name  except  by  means  of  an  idea  previously  acquired.  It  is 
only  in  the  light  of  an  idea  that  we  can  possibly  see  a  fact, 
and  the  more  general  and  elevated  the  idea,  the  more  light 
does  it  throw  on  the  fact ;  great  ideas  are  best  adapted  to 
illumine  facts  or  delineate  them  clearly  on  the  shadow  of  our 
ignorance.  Moreover,  the  design  and  the  use  of  facts  is  to 
conduct  us  to  ideas  ;  to  elevate  us  to  them ;  here  is  all  our 
dignity ;  and  the  more  general  the  ideas  are,  that  is  to  say, 
the  more  numerous  the  groups  of  facts  which  they  embrace, 
the  more  are  we  elevated.  The  idea  of  God  is  the  highest 
and  grandest,  because  it  embraces  everything,  and  beyond  it 
there  is  nothing.* 

Thus,  an  idea  appears  by  turns  as  a  means,  and  as  an  end. 
In  one  view  an  idea  is  the  condition  or  the  means  of  the 
knowledge  of  facts,  a  lever  by  the  aid  of  which  we  raise 

*  Instead  of  this  paragraph,  we  read  in  an  earlier  manuscript  the 
following  passage  which  we  think  it  may  be  useful  to  reproduce. 
"  Let  us  here  remark  the  importance  of  ideas.  It  is  perceived  by 
philosophy  that  in  the  absolute  sense,  idea  precedes  fact.  The 
human  mind,  before  all  experience,  presents  in  its  interior  a  certain 
number  of  moulds  or  matrices,  without  which  facts  could  not  pene- 
trate it,  or  would  remain  without  form,  which  is  the  same  thing. 
Keciprocally  these  moulds  or  matrices  would,  apart  from  the  facts, 
remain  eternally  unfruitful.  These  moulds  or  matrices  are  primary 
ideas,  primary  and  fundamental  attributes  of  which  all  others  are 
composed.  These  attributes  or  predicates  only  wait,  so  to  speak,  for 
subjects ;  but  without  them  no  proposition,  no  judgment,  can  have 
existence  in  the  human  mind.  Now  what  we  say  of  primitive  and 
perfectly  simple  ideas,  we  say  in  like  manner,  other  things  being 
equal,  of  whatever  is  called  an  idea ;  that  is  to  say,  of  every  attri- 
bute separated  from  every  subject  and  rendered  substantive.  These 
secondary  ideas  are  not  conceived  without  the  aid  and  concourse  of 
facts;  but  once  conceived,' they  become  the  rule  or  the  measure  of 
other  facts.  A  fact  never  has  a  form,  a  name,  except  by  means  of  an 
idea  antecedently  acquired."  Here  the  two  manuscripts  are  con- 
nected.— [Editors.  ] 


EXPLICATION  OF  IDEAS.  161 

them  and  detach  them  from  the  soil  ;  or,  if  we  will,  the 
light  in  which  we  discern  and  measure  them.  In  the  other 
view,  it  is  the  end  itself  of  the  knowledge  of  facts.  Through 
facts,  we  seek  to  attain  ideas,  which  are  not  only  their  repre- 
sentation but  their  law,  and  which,  in  respect  to  God,  are  the 
true  facts,  the  supreme  facts,  of  which  facts,  properly  so  called, 
are  but  the  expression  or  the  symbol. 

It  is  evident,  that  facts  have  much  to  do  in  religion  and  in 
preaching.  Eeligion,  which  is  founded  in  facts,  resolves  it- 
self into  ideas.  Preaching  is  occupied  especially  with  the 
ideas  of  religion. 

Facts,  we  have  seen,  are  related  or  described.  Idea,  as 
such,  is  defined,  in  other  terms  is  classified. 

Definition  is  defined  by  the  etymology  of  the  word.  It 
marks  the  limits  of  an  idea.  To  define  definition  positively, 
we  say  that  it  teaches  of  what  elements  an  idea,  as  a  whole, 
is  composed.  It  consists  in  bringing  together  many  general 
ideas,  of  which  one  is  limited  by  the  others.  When  the 
idea,  so  to  speak,  is  fortified,  entrenched,  so  that  on  all  sides 
it  repels  ideas  which  w^ould  mix  themselves  with  it,  the  ob- 
ject is  defined. 

We  must  not  confound  definition  and  judgment. 

Definition  does  but  verify  identity  ;  judgment  expresses 
a  relation.  Definition  is  an  analytical  proposition  ;  judg- 
ment is  a  synthetic  proposition.  Definition  only  decomposes 
an  object  ;  judgment  composes,  or  adds  to  the  notion  of  an 
object,  taken  in  the  whole  of  its  constituent  elements,  that 
of  some  quality. 

Definition  aims  to  make  us  know  ;  judgment,  to  appre- 
ciate. Very  often,  however,  definition  appreciates,  and  in- 
volves judgment  ;  and  judgment  is  equivalent  to  a  partial 
definition.  We  must  not  however  confound  with  definition, 
those  judgments  which  give  force  to  a  characteristic  of  an  ob- 


162  EXPLICATION   OF  IDEAS. 

ject,  and  are  only  designed  to  excite  toward  it  such  or  such  a 
sentiment.     Examples  : 

"  The  existence  of  man  is  the  dream  of  a  shadow."* 
"  The  history  of  the  Church  is  the  history  of  truth." 
"  Rivers  are  roads  that  move  and  carry  us  whither  we 
would  go." 

"  The  beautiful  is  the  splendor  of  the  true." 
"  Hypocrisy  is  an  homage  which  vice  pays  to  virtue." 
"  Envy  is  the  awkward  homage  which  mediocrity  pays  to 
merit." 

"  Man  is  but  a  reed,  the  feeblest  of  created  things  ;  but  he 
is  a  thinking  reed." 

"  Life  is  a  combat  for  a  prize  which  is  in  heaven." 
"  Raillery  is  a  discourse  in  favor  of  our  wit  against  our 
good  nature." 

"  Time  is  the  treasure  of  the  poor." 
"  A  courtier  is  a  man  who  has  neither  honor  nor  humor." 
"  Time,  that  changeable  image  of  unchangeable  eternity." 
"  A  tomb  is  a  monument  placed  on  the  boundary  between 
two  worlds." 

"  Nature  is  the   outward  throne  of  the  magnificence   of 
God." 

"  Charity  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law."  -   •   - 
"  Vice  may  be  defined,  the  sacrifice  of  the  future  to  the 
present." 

"  Historia   testis   temporwn^  lux   veritatis,  vita   tnemorice, 
magistra  vitce,  nuntia  vetustatis.''''     (Cicero.) 

When  the  notion  of  the  attribute  does  not  exhaust  that  of 
the  subject,  and  one  cannot  be  put  indifferently  for  the  other, 
we  have  not  a  definition,  we  have  a  judgment.  Satire  de- 
fines after  its  own  manner.  Thus  Rochefoucald  defined 
moderation,  "A  fear  of  falling  into  envy  and  contempt, 
"*  What  shadows  we  are,  what  .shadows  we  pursue." 


EXPLICATION  OF  IDEAS.  163 

which  those  deserve  who  are  intoxicated  with  their  good  for- 
tune," and  La  Bruyere  defined  gravity,  "  A  mystery  of  the 
body  designed  to  conceal  weakness  of  mind."  According  to 
Diderot,"  Religious  liberty  is  the  right  of  each  one  to  per- 
secute in  his  turn."  It  is  evident,  that  the  reference  in  these 
examples  is  to  false  moderation,  false  gra\dty,  false  liberty. 

A  definition  is  indeed  a  judgment,  but  a  judgment  which 
contains  or  begets  all  the  judgments  which  at  any  time 
may  be  pronounced  upon  an  object.  And  reciprocally,  by 
combining  all  the  judgments  which  at  any  time  may  be  pro- 
nounced on  an  object,  we  have  a  definition. 

We  may  give  this  name  to  the  following  propositions : 

"  Skill  is  the  just  distribution  of  one's  forces."  (Montes- 
quieu.) 

"  Rectitude  is  a  purity  of  motive  and  intention,  which  gives 
form  and  perfection  to  virtue,  and  which  attaches  the  soul  to 
good  for  its  own  sake."     (Flechier.) 

"  An  army  is  a  number  of  armed  men,  larger  or  smaller, 
assembled  rnider  a  chief,  for  the  purpose  of  defending  their 
country,  or  of  attacking  another  country  in  favor  of  their 
own."     (Flechier.) 

"  Gratitude  is  the  memory  of  the  heart,"  (the  sense  of  ben- 
efits received.) 

"  The  universe  is  a  sphere  of  which  the  centre  is  every- 
where, the  circumference  nowhere."  »/    ^■-  ■■         '  ■ 

"  Faith  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence 
of  things  not  seen."     (Hebrews,  xi.  1.)* 

A  definition  may  involve  a  judgment,  or  contain  an  ex- 
plicit judgment.  "  Death  is  the  termination  of  an  unquiet 
dream  which  is  called  life." 

Every  discourse  begins,  or  is  supposed  to  begin,  with  a  de- 

*  See  examples  of  definition  drawn  from  Cicero,  in  Rollins'  note 
on  definition,  tome  i.,  p.  340,  by  Quintilian,  lib.  v.,  cap.  x.,  de  locis 
argumentorum. 


164  EXPLICATION  OF  IDEAS. 

finition  of  the  object,  unless  when  it  is  very  well  known,  as 
is  almost  never  the  case.  And  when  it  is  known,  it  is  not 
distinctly  present  to  the  mind  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
hearers. 

Cicero  rejects  formal  definition,  as  presenting  some  danger 
by  the  rigor  which  it  requires,  as  savoring  of  pedantry, 
and  also  as  entering  with  difficulty  into  the  mind  of  the  hear- 
er, who  has  no  time  to  pause.*  "  Besides,"  says  Marmontel, 
"  all  kinds  of  eloquence  do  not  require  the  same  care  as 
pleading,  in  which  the  plaintiff  and  defendant  have  to  be  con- 
stantly on  their  guard,  and  to  strike  and  parry  almost  at  the 
same  time.  Thus  definition is  less  critical,  and  at- 
tended with  less  danger  in  eulogy  or  deliberation."'!' 

But  it  is  always  necessary  to  define  the  object  exactly  to 
one's  self 

Definition  is  not  only  a  means  of  perspicuity,  an  element 
of  instruction,  the  basis  of  argumentation ;  it  is  often  the  be- 
ginning of  proof];  Demonstration,  at  least,  is  firm  and  sure 
in  proportion  to  the  exactness  and  clearness  of  the  definition. 
Thus  the  definition  of  the  word  good,  in  Romans,  viii.  28, 
"All  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God." 

Definition  is  direct  or  indirect — direct  when  it  goes  straight 
to  the  idea ;  indirect  when  its  course  is  circuitous. 

Direct  definition  may  be  precise  or  free.  In  the  first  case, 
which  is  that  of  definition  properly  so  called,  it  is  reduced  to 
what  is  indispensable,  with  care  to  omit  nothing.  In  the 
second,  we  repeat,  under  various  forms,  the  terms  of  which 
the  definition  consists,§  either  defining  them,  or  dividing  again 

*  CiCKRO,  de  oratore,  ii.  25. 

f  Marmontel,  Elements  de  litterature,  tome  ii.,  Article  Definition. 
X  See  QuiNTiLiAN,  lib.  v.  eh.  x. 

§  Example  "  The  world  is  tlie  creation  taken  by  itself;  it  is  what- 
ever passes,  it  is  all  that  is  not  God. 


EXPLICATION  OF  IDEAS.  165 

the  matter  of  each  of  them,  which  is  enumerating  the 
parts.* 

Direct  definition  is  sometimes  simple^  sometimes  combined. 
It  is  combined  when  it  is  complicated  with  another  defini- 
tion, by  the  accession  of  an  idea  either  different,. or  opposed, 
or  similar,  or  vicinal,  or  more  particular,  or  more  general, 
etc.f 

Finally,  direct  definition  may  be  either  ascending  or  de- 
scending. The  descending  is  the  most  ordinary  form.  The 
ascending  or  regressive  form  consists  in  constructing  the  idea, 
or,  if  you  will,  in  giving  its  genesis. 

These  different  forms  may  again  be  combined.;]; 

We  present  some  rules  as  to  the  use  of  direct  definition : 

1.  Not  to  give  the  definition  too  much  place  in  the  dis- 
course, lest  the  movement  be  interrupted. 

2.  To  avoid  too  subtile  distinctions  and  classifications,  which 
assume  a  great  habit  of  abstraction,  and  an  exact  knowledge 
of  language  on  the  part  of  the  hearer. 

*  See  BouRDALOUE,  Avent,  Sermon  sur  la  recompense  des  saints,  the 
beginning  of  the  second  part.     Edition  Lefevre,  tome  i.,  p.  5. 

f  Combined  definition  has  the  form, 

a.  Either  of  a  distinction.  A  thing  is  this  and  not  that.  Tlius 
the  world  in  the  sense  of  1  John,  ii.  15.  is  neither  the  whole  of  hu- 
manity, nor  the  order  of  the  creation,  nor  the  tumult  of  society. 
See  the   definition   of   courage   in  Voraison  funehre  de  Turenne,  by 

Flechier. 

6.     Or  of  exclusion.     True  zeal  defined  by  the  characteristics  of 

the  false.     (See  le  Tartuffe,  Aete  i.  Scene  vi.) 

c.  Or  of  comparison  with  similar  things,  (assimilation,)  remorse, 
repentance. 

d.  Or  of  the  difference  between  species  and  genus.  Republic,  de- 
mocracy ;  self-love,  vanity  ;  justice,  equity. 

e.  Or  of  the  proof  itself  of  the  existence  of  the  object. 

^  See  Reinhaed,  sur  V Emharras,  (sermons  for  1'792),  Sermon  ii., 
and  Massillon,  Careme,  Sermon  sur  V hmnutabilite,  de  la  loi  de  Dieu,  the 
beginning  of  the  second  part.     (Tome  i.,  p.  459,  Edition  Lefevre.) 


166  EXPLICATION   OF  IDEAS. 

8.  Not  to  recur  to  formal  definition  without  necessity,* 
but  to  give  it  as  much  as  possible  the  form  of  the  con- 
struction or  discussion,  f 

4.  Not  to  seek  to  define  everything ;  as 

a.  That  which  is  well  known  and  is  alreaay  present  to 
the  mind  of  all ; 

b.  Ideas  which  are  too  simple,  as  being  the  very  sub- 
stance which  serves  as  the  common  basis  of  all  the  ideas,  the 
organic  molecules  of  thought  and  discourse,  something  which 
cannot  be  defined,  because  it  camiot  be  decomposed,  and 
which  defines  itself  by  the  mere  view  of  the  object  or  the 
fact,  and  not  by  words  ; 

c.  Ideas,  which  instantly  escape,  and  refuse  definition, 
on  account  of  the  elevated  or  purely  moral  sphere  to  which 
they  belong.  Their  nature  is  rather  felt,  than  conceived. 
We  define  them  by  renewing  the  impression  which  they 
have  produced.  They  are  known,  they  are  seen,  when  they 
are  felt. J  The  Bible  formally  defines  but  little.  Ideas 
taken  above  the  region  of  physical  or  moral  observation, 
borrow  names  by  analogy  from  the  relations  of  the  visible 
and  human  world.  God  is  the  father  of  Spirits;  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  husband  of  the  Church.  It  is  metaphor  alone 
that  gives  these  names. 

Finally,  though  ideas  may  suffice  to  make  known  ideas, 
they  cannot  give  that  vivid  intuition  of  things,  which  is 
necessary   for  most    minds.      When    this   is  the  case,  we 

*  When  we  examine  the  works  of  the  masters,  we  find  that  they 
seldom  prefer  the  formal  definition.     As  they  prove  by  defining, 
they  define  by   proving.     Their  definitioDS  seldom  arrest  the  dis- 
course ;  we  do  not  hear  them  say  as  Defendant  dans  les  Plaideurs — 
.     .     .     .     Puis  done  qu'on  nous  permet  de  prendre 
Haleine,  etc, 
f  See  Chrtsostom  on  Vain  Glory. 

if  The  comprehensive  and  philosophical  meaning  of  the  word 
know  in  the  Bible. 


EXPLICATION   OF  IDEAS.  167 

must  replace,  or  complete  the  direct  method,  of  which 
we  have  given  the  different  forms,  by  the  indirect^  which 
consists  in  translating  the  idea  into  facts,  so  that  we  may 
relate  or  describe  the  idea,  as  we  relate  or  describe  a 
fact.  Only  let  us  remark,  that  this,  properly  speaking,  is 
not  to  replace  definition,  but  to  supplement  or  lead  to  it.  In 
regard  to  ideas,  only  abstract  terms  can  be  exact.  We  may 
define  an  idea, 

a.  By  its  external  signs  or  manifestations  ;* 
h.  By  individualizing  it,  or  by  giving  it  the  concrete 
form,  [personification^)    avoiding,  however,  excess  of  por- 
traiture ;f 

c.  By  historical  examples :  Via  brevis  per  exempla. 
Perhaps  no  one  of  them  corresponds  precisely  to  the  idea, 
but  by  taking  that  which  each  of  the  facts  has  in  common, 
and  leaving  the  rest,  we  construct  the  idea.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  cite  many ;];  but  those  which  we  do  cite,  we  must 
define,  that  the  essential  elements  of  the  idea  may  distinctly 
appear ; 

d.  By  recalling  to  the  hearers  a  situation  or  an  expe- 
rience of  their  own ;  definition  now  becomes  dramatic  ;§ 

*  See  the  description  of  pride  in  Bourdai,oije,  Pensees  sur  divers 
sujets  de  morale  et  de  religion,  (Edition  Lefevre,  tome  iii.,  p.  416.) 

f  See  the  description  of  the  penitent  by  Massillon,  Careme,  sermon 
sur  le  petit  nomhre  des  elus,  (Edition  Lefevre,  tome  i.,  p.  302. 

X  Abraham  and  Lot. 

Alexander  and  his  physician,  greatness  of  soul.  The  anecdote  re- 
lated by  Diderot  of  a  Curate,  who,  having  begged  of  an  officer  to 
contribute  to  a  collection  for  the  poor  of  his  parish,  received  a  blow, 
insisted  still,  saying,  "this  is  for  myself;  but  for  my  poor?"  The 
story  of  the  negro  who  when  questioned  as  to  the  motives  which  in- 
duced him  to  bestow  his  attentions  on  an  old  man,  replied,  "  Massa,  he 
is  my  enemy."    See  Hebrews,  xi,  4,  5,  7,  8,  11,  17,  20,  21,  22,  24,  29. 

§  See  BossEUT,  Premier  Sermon  pour  la  fete  de  tous  les  saints, 
(Sermons  choisis,  p.  493  ;)  et  G-ermond,  dans  le  Eectceil  de  Sermons  de 
divers  Ministres  evangeliques  du  Canton  de  Vaud,  p.  246. 


168  EXPLICATION  OF  IDEAS. 

e.  By  bringing  upon  the  stage  the  orator  himself  who 
places  himself  in  the  position  of  which  he  wishes  to  give  an 
idea.  "I  do  not  know,"  says  Pascal,  "who  has  sent  me 
into  the  world,  nor  what  the  world  is,  nor  what  I  am  myself. 
I  am  fearfully  ignorant  of  all  things.  I  do  not  know  what 
my  body  is,  what  my  senses  are,  what  my  soul  is,  and  that 
very  part  of  me  which  thinks  what  I  am  now  speaking,  which 
reflects  on  everything  and  on  itself,  knows  itself  no  more 
than  other  things.  I  see  an  awful  expanse  in  the  universe  in 
which  I  am  included.  I  find  myself  confined  to  a  narrow 
corner  of  this  vast  extent,  without  knowing  why  T  am  put  in 
one  place  rather  than  another,  or  why  that  little  time  I  am 
to  live,  has  been  assigned  to  this  point,  rather  than  to  some 
other  in  that  eternity  which  has  preceded  me,  or  in  that 
which  is  to  come.  On  all  sides  I  see  only  infinities,  which 
enclose  me  as  an  atom,  and  as  a  shadow  that  remains  for  an 
instant  and  never  returns  ;  all  that  I  know  is,  that  I  am 
presently  to  die ;  but  what  I  am  most  ignorant  of  is  that 
death  itself  which  I  know  I  cannot  shun,"*  etc. ; 

/.  By  a  parable.  Jesus  Christ  often  used  this  form  of 
instruction,  and  this  would  seem  to  be  one  of  the  best  for  us 
also,  if  we  could  resist  our  propensity  to  conceits.  A 
parable,  besides,  is  but  a  continued  metaphor,  which  we  al- 
ways use  in  explaining  what  is  great.  While  literal  lan- 
guage is  finite,  metaphor  is  infinite.  There  are  things  which 
we  cannot  reach  but  by  a  stretch  of  the  imagination,  f 

While  we  avoid  formal  definition  let  us  not  suppress  or 
mutilate  definition ;  the  whole,  often,  hardly  serves  to  intro- 
duce the  idea ;  and  when  all  is  done,  even  when  the  preacher 

*  Pascal,  Pensees,  partie  ii.,  art.  ii.  of  the  former  editions,  tome 
ii.,  p.  9  ;  edition  Favigere. 

f  Parable  of  Ephrem  Syrus,  Bridaine,  cited  by  Maury,  Eloquence 
de  la  chaire,  xx.  See,  also,  in  the  discours  sur  guelques  svjets  rcli- 
gieuXf  the  discourse  entitled,  Les  trois  reveils. 


PKOOF.  169 

seems  least  engaged  in  the  labor  of  defining,  he  is  putting 
forth  all  his  efforts  to  give  directly  or  indirectly  a  distinct 
notion,  a  vivid  perception  of  the  idea. 

Definition  as  much  as  possible  should  excite  and  stimulate 
the  free  and  vital  forces  of  the  soul.  Perfect  definition  is 
that  which,  at  the  same  time,  gives  knowledge,  comprehen- 
sion, feeling  and  faith. 


CHAPTER  11. 

OF   PROOF. 

We  have  defined,  we  have  not  yet  judged ;  for  definition 
adds  nothing  to  the  object,  it  only  names  it.  We  are  to 
pass  judgment.  Every  judgment  which  is  not  a  pure  and 
immediate  intuition  of  the  soul,  implies  or  demands  a  proof. 

Proof,  as  an  act,  consists  in  approaching  the  judgment  in 
question  with  another  judgment  already  formed,  already  at- 
tained to  in  our  conviction  ;  one  of  these  judgments  implies 
the  other  ;  this  is  common  to  every  species  of  demonstra- 
tion. 

But  though  in  every  judgment  proof  is  implied  and  should 
be  at  hand,  may  not  the  preacher  announce  judgments  with- 
out producing  the  proofs  of  them  1  May  he  not,  in  some 
cases,  restrict  himself  to  simple  and  direct  affirmation  1 
Without  doubt  ;  and  he  must  even  often  speak  thus  to  his 
auditory,  proof  being  understood.  But  we  have  nothing  to 
say  here,  concerning  those  judgments  which  explicit  proof 
does  not  precede.  In  respect  of  form,  it  suffices  to  apply  to 
them  what  we  have  said  of  the  forms  of  definition. 

It  is  is  less  of  judgment  than  of  proof  that  we  now  have 
to  speak. 

8 


170  PROOF. 

Proof  is  the  intellectual  act  by  which  the  eifect  of  certi- 
tude is  realized  in  us. 

Definition  terminates  relative  ignorance,  proof  puts  an 
end  to  doubt.    By  the  first  we  know,  by  the  second  we  believe. 

We  must  distinguish  two  orders  of  truths  :  speculative  and 
practical.     But  both  are  alike  established  by  proof. 

In  regard  to  both  of  these,  proof  produces  conviction,  which 
is  a  state  in  which  one  can  deny  neither  the  fact  nor  the  right, 
without,  in  some  sort,  denying  himself.  For  proof  consists, 
as  it  were,  in  opposing  a  hearer  with  his  own  signature  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  admission  of  some  more  general  or 
previously  proved  truth,  which  involves  the  truth  in  ques- 
tion, or  from  which  it  irresistibly  flows. 

If  the  question  be  one  of  fact,  the  arguments  (means,  in- 
struments of  proof)  are  called  reasons  ;  if  of  right  or  duty, 
they  are  motives.  To  recognize,  fact  or  right,  is  to  admit  its 
conformity,  in  either  case,  to  the  idea  of  the  true  which  is  in 
us,  or  that  it  is  implied  in  a  truth  which  we  hold  already  as 
certain  and  incontrovertible.  This  recognition  is  what  the 
preacher  would  first  of  all  obtain,  in  respect  not  only  to  fact 
but  to  right.     The  result  in  both  cases  is  called  conviction. 

Persuasion^  which  comes  afterwards,  or  the  inclination  of 
the  will  to  such  or  such  an  act,  is  necessary,  but  neither  more 
nor  less  than  conviction  ;  and  if  the  preacher  does  not  think 
that  he  has  attained  his  purpose  unless  conviction  be  also  per 
suasion,  neither  does  he  suppose  he  has  attained  it  if  he  has 
persuaded  without  convincmg. 

We  first  regard  only  the  means  of  producing  conviction, 
but  let  it  be  remarked  carefully,  that  what  we  here  sep- 
arate, the  orator  ordinarily  does  not  separate,  and  that  he 
endeavors  to  produce  at  one  and  the  same  time,  conviction 
and  persuasion. 


PROOF.  171 

§  1.  Proofs  properly  so  called^  or  reasons. 

Whether  we  have  to  prove  that  a  thing  is,  or  that  it  ought 
to  be,  there  are  three  ways  of  arriving  at  certainty  :  im- 
mediate experience  ;  testimony,  which  is  the  experience  of 
others,  and  which  is  called  authority,  or  the  assumption  that 
the  credibility  of  the  witness  is  out  of  doubt ;  finally,  reason- 
ing, which  is  the  testimony  of  reason  (of  our  reason)  not  of 
the  senses,  and  which  binds  together  and  renders  mutually 
fruitful,  the  truths  acquired  by  means  of  experience  or  au- 
thority.* 

In  preaching,  authority,  or  testimony  worthy  of  belief,  ap- 
pears to  hold  the  first  rank,  although  the  words  "  worthy  of 
belief,"  imply  the  use  of  experience  and  even  of  reasoning. 
What  gives  authority  the  first  rank  is,  that  the  doctrine  which 
the  preacher  teaches  is  a  revealed  doctrine.  If,  however,  au- 
thority, in  the  matter  of  preaching,  were  all,  or  nearly  all, 
preaching  would  be  reduced  to  notliing  or  nearly  nothing. 

Experience  and  reasoning  are  combined  with  authority  in 
the  pulpit,  not  in  order  to  prove  the  authenticity  of  the  doc- 
ument, which  is  out  of  question,  nor  to  supplement  it,  since 
the  certitude,  which  springs  from  the  testimony,  is  not  a  half- 
certitude  ;  but  because,  subjectively,  and  in  regard  to  the 
last  end  which  is  proposed,  no  proof  suffices  in  this  sphere, 
if  the  inward  witness  is  not  connected  with  it,  and  because 
the  declarations  of  the  Bible  are  often  only  starting  points 
for  reason. 

Those  whom  we  vanquish,  must  become  our  allies ;  we 
gain  nothing  until  they  do. 

Experience  and  reasoning  have  much  to  do  here. 

The  pulpit  does  not  create  experiences,  but  it  renovates 
while  it  recalls  them. 

The  object  of  proof  by  experience,  or  by  facts  is,  1,  to 
*  See  BouRDELOuE  tome  i.,  p.  149,  ancienne  edition. 


172  PROOF  BY  EXPERIENCE. 

prove  contingent  facts,  that  which  has  place,  either  by  an- 
terior facts  (a  priori)  or  by  posterior  facts  (a  posteriori)  ;  2, 
to  prove  general  or  generic  facts,  which  are  formed  by 
individual  facts,  more  or  less  numerous,  appertaining  to  the 
genus  or  species  in  question ;  3,  to  prove  a  principle  or  an 
idea  (idea  is  the  law  of  facts),  that  which  has  place  when,  by 
an  action,  a  personal  being,  clothed  in  our  view  with  author- 
ity, has  consecrated  the  principle,  (this  returns  to  testimony,) 
or  when  facts  which  are  not  actions,  reveal  an  idea ;  but  this 
supposes  conviction  previously  established,  from  the  unity 
of  truth,  or  from  the  unity  of  thought  which  created  the  uni- 
verse. 

Proof  by  experience  is  the  most  accessible,  the  most  pop- 
ular, but  it  is  that  of  which  the  abuse  is  the  most  frequent 
and  the  most  to  be  feared. 

When  it  is  said,  "  this  is  a  fact,"  it  is  thought  that  every- 
thing has  been  said ;  this  cuts  the  matter  short ;  what  reply 
can  be  made  to  a  fact  ?  Two  things :  It  is  not  true ; — it  is 
not  conclusive. 

Prejudice  in  favor  of  proof  by  experience  may  end  by  de- 
grading the  testimony  of  reason  and  of  conscience.  We  no 
longer  believe  in  truth,  when  we  only  believe  in  external 
facts. 

A  perpetual  dispute  here  presents  itself  between  men  of 
theory  and  men  of  practice,  a  difference  as  to  which  taken  in 
its  extremes,  there  is  blame  on  both  sides.  It  would  be 
equally  improper  not  to  be  willing  to  descend  to  facts  and 
not  to  be  willing  to  rise  to  principles.  What  is  a  principle 
but  a  primordial  elementary  fact,  or  perhaps  a  truth  of  the 
conscience  1     I  would  distrust  facts  as  much  as  ideas. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  principal  uses  of  experience  in 
proof.  It  remains  for  us  to  make  some  citations  to  show 
under  what  principal  forms  proof  by  experience  is  presented. 

Massillon,  intending  to  prove  that  common  life  cannot  be 


PROOF  BY  EXPERIENCE.  173 

christian  life,  says  that  the  saints  in  all  ages  have  been  sin- 
gular men.*   Here  experience  proves  a  principle. 

Saurin  would  prove  to  his  hearers,  that  they  give  but  little. 
He  cites  the  example  of  the  Jews  and  first  christians. f  This 
proves  directly  a  general  fact,  and  by  that  general  fact  it 
establishes  a  principle. 

Proof  from  experience  may  alternately  be  taken  from  a 
distance  or  at  hand,  in  respect  to  the  hearer ;  in  facts  foreign 
or  personal  to  him; J;  in  biblical  or  in  profane  history;  in 
what  is  known  to  him  and  what  is  unknown.  It  may  also, 
sometimes  be  better  to  multiply  examples,  to  raise  up  "a 
cloud  of  witness,"  as  Massillon  and  Saurin  prefer  to  do ;  and 
sometimes  to  restrict  ourselves  to  a  single  example  and 
treat  it  amply  and  thoroughly. 

As  to  the  first  point,  it  seems  at  first  view,  that  there  can 
be  no  hesitation,  and  that  we  must  always  take  examples 
near  to  the  hearer  rather  than  seek  them  at  a  distance.  This 
rule,  however,  is  not  to  be  invariably  followed ;  the  one  course 
or  the  other  is  to  be  preferred,  according  to  cases,  according 
to  the  character  of  the  auditory,  according  to  the  object  we 
have  in  view.  Though  facts  which  occur  near  the  hearer, 
have  a  special  influence  upon  him,  those  which  are  brought 
from  a  distance,  may  nevertheless  strike  him  more  power- 
fully, by  showmg  him  that  truth  remains  the  same  in  all 
times,  in  all  places,  and  perhaps  in  all  conditions.  Moreover, 
though  it  is  not  the  object  of  religion  to  enlarge  our  ideas, 

*  Massillon,  Careme,  sermon  sur  le  petit  nomhre  des  elus.  (Tome  i., 
p.  306,  edition  Lefevre.) 

f  Saurin,  Sermon  sur  VAumone,  tome  ii.,  p,  27,  nouvelle  edition. 

\  Saurin,  on  the  agreement  of  Religion  with  Politics,  (tome  viii.,  p. 
24,  nouvelle  edition,)  takes  an  example  in  facts  near  his  hearers.  In 
the  third  sermon  on  the  Delay  of  Conversion,  (tome  i.,  p.  109,  nou- 
velle edition,)  he  begins  with  Scriptural  examples,  in  order  thus  to 
arrive  at  personal  examples. 


174  PROOF  BY  REASONING. 

still  it  has  a  tendency  to  do  this,  which  we  must  not  neglect. 
Many  persons,  especially  in  the  lower  classes,  have  narrow 
and  false  opinions,  because  they  want  the  terms  of  compari- 
son. We  add,  that  facts  taken  from  the  neighborhood  of  the 
hearer,  are  seldom  viewed  with  advantage ;  the  contempla- 
tive faculty  has  need  of  a  calmness  which  is  often  disturbed 
when  it  applies  itself  to  objects  too  near  to  us.  Contempo- 
rary literature  is  more  a  matter  of  real  life  than  of  pure  lit- 
erature; it  takes  this  character  in  after-times.  He  who, 
meanwhile,  would  give  himself  a  literary  culture,  should 
ascend  to  the  literature  of  the  ancients.  Thus,  ancient  his- 
tory, precisely  because  it  is  ancient,  is  more  instructive  than 
contemporary  history.  We  may  apply  the  same  remarks  to 
examples  drawn  from  facts  which  are  more  or  less  personal 
to  the  hearers.  The  danger  here  consists  in  occupying  the 
hearer  with  himself,  with  his  own  personality,  or  that  of  some 
other  who  is  on  the  stage.  We  should  not,  on  account  of 
this  danger,  forego  manifest  advantages ;  but  it  becomes  a 
preacher  to  be  very  circumspect  in  such  cases,  and  to  treat 
matters  so  delicate,  with  much  tact  and  gravity.  As  to  ex- 
amples drawn  from  profane  history,  we  do  not  see  why  they 
should  be  banished  from  preaching.  Men  only  are  profane, 
facts  are  not,  and  the  example  of  Regulus  may  certainly  be 
cited  with  profit  in  Christian  teaching. 

Reasoning. — Proof  from  authority,  or  from  experience,  es- 
tablishes a  fact  and  does  nothing  more.  That  fact,  in  regard  to 
proof  by  reasoning,  is  but  a  point  of  departure.  By  reason, 
we  discover  another  fact  involved  in  the  first.  The  knowl- 
edge obtained  by  reasoning  is  not  without  a  connection  with 
faith ;  it  rests,  at  least,  on  faith  in  the  principles  of  reason. 

Pure  reasoning  handles  ideas  and  not  facts.  It  is  a  sort 
of  geometry  of  intellectual  space.  This  geometry,  however, 
is  less  certain  than  the  other,  the  import  of  signs  here  being 


PROOF   BY   EEASONING.  175 

less  invariable.  Hence  the  necessity  of  not  coursing  entirely 
through  the  void,  and  of  descending  often  to  the  earth  to  set 
our  feet  on  facts.  Otherwise,  we  run  the  risk  of  proving  too 
much,  and  of  losing,  at  length,  the  sense  of  reality.  At  the 
end  of  the  most  sound  reasonings,  when  the  reason  of  the 
hearer  seems  to  be  overcome,  something  more  intimate  than 
logic,  rises  up  within  him,  and  protests  against  your  conclu- 
sions. 

There  are  understandings  which  logic  infuriates ;  these  are 
no  longer  souls,  they  are  dialectic  machinery.  Thought  also 
may  be  stupefied,  having  connection  no  longer  with  senti- 
ment, with  conscience,  with  testimony.  We  sometimes  re- 
ceive this  impression  by  contemplating  those  powerful  logi- 
cians whom  we  admire  and  dread.  Let  us  not  trust  either 
in  the  senses  or  the  intelligence  ;  let  us  trust  in  the  soul. 

To  return  to  the  preacher,  he  also  is  in  danger  from  this 
quarter  ;  he  may  arrive  by  dialectics  at  impossible,  even  ab- 
surd results.  Bourdeloue,  in  his  admirable  sermon  on  Inv- 
purity^  goes  too  far  when  he  strives  to  prove  that  the  volup- 
tuous man  is  in  greater  darkness  than  the  devils  ;  he  ought 
only  to  have  said  that  the  sinner,  enlightened  by  hell,  will  suffer 
more.  Thus  a  modern  preacher,  who  is  moreover  very  dis- 
tinguished, passes  all  bounds,  when,  after  showing  that  all  sins 
are  equal,  he  endeavors  further  to  prove  that  little  sins  are 
even  greater  than  great  ones.  There  is  a  very  great  difference 
between  logical  dexterity  and  the  sentiment  of  reality.  We 
may  be  rigorously  dialectic  and  be  wanting  in  good  sense,  and 
Pascal  is  right  in  distinguishing,  as  he  has  done  in  two  places, 
between  the  method  of  Geometry  and  that  of  common 
sense. 

Even  when  we  run  no  risk  of  misleading  ourselves,  we 
yet  may  not  always  attain  our  whole  object.  On  the  one 
hand,  we  may  have  attained  the  hearer's  submission  rather 
than  his  adherence  ;  have   conquered  him,  rather  than  con- 


176  PROOF  BY  REASONING. 

verted  him  into  an  ally — the  true  victory  ;  on  the  other,  the 
truth,  which,  in  its  very  substance,  should  be  united  to  man, 
become  consubstantial  with  him,  remains  apart  from  him. 

Reasoning,  moreover,  when  it  is  too  much  prolonged,  too 
dialectic,  wearies  attention,  and  goes  beyond  the  bounds  with- 
in which  it  is  commonly  obtained.  Nevertheless,  the  province 
of  reasoning  is  of  great  extent,  first,  because  there  are  many 
things  the  knowledge  of  which  is  to  be  gained  only  in  this 
way  ;  next,  because  it  is  necessary  to  prove  what  is  known 
and  believed,  not  precisely  to  make  it  known  and  believed,  but 
to  give  more  presence  to  the  proofs  of  truth.  Even  in  the 
cases  in  which  reasoning  seems  superfluous,  it  may  be  greatly 
useful,  since  its  object  is  not  so  much  to  prove  what  is  not 
yet  believed,  as  to  fill  the  mind  with  the  evidence,  and  if  we 
may  so  speak,  to  multiply  the  brightness  of  truth.  * 

We  must  then  reason,  and  even  abound  in  reasoning. 
But  this,  however  true,  does  not  set  aside  the  following 
rules  : 

1.  To  prefer  the  shortest  road  in  every  argument  we  use. 

2.  To  prefer  the  most  popular  arguments,  f 

*  "  Let  a  man  susceptible  to  the  power  of  eloquence,  and  familiar 
with  the  genius  of  Demosthenes,  read  again  the  fourteenth  Provin- 
cial, the  famous  letter  on  homicide.  Pascal  first  encloses  his  adver- 
saries between  corrupt  religion  and  outraged  hiimanity  ;  he  then 
advances  on  them  with  a  slow  and  irresistible  progress,  descending  al- 
ways from  the  loftiest  principles,  supported  by  all  the  sacred  au- 
thorities, and  applying  the  exactness  of  the  severest  logic  to  the 
demonstration  of  the  most  manifest  truths.  In  defeating  his  enemies 
he  employs,  so  to  speak,  a  superabundant  force  ;  and  it  is  evident 
that  he  holds  them  so  long  under  the  sword  of  his  eloquence,  not  to 
confute  but  to  punish  them.  Every  time  he  completes  an  argument, 
the  cause  is  gained  ;  but  he  recommences  in  order  to  lead  his  con- 
quered adversaries  through  all  the  humiliations   of  their  error." 

VlLLEMAIN. 

f  "  What  is  the  true  ground  of  eloquence,  if  it  is  not  commonplace? 
When  eloquence  is  combined  with  high  philosophical  considerations, 


AFFIRMATIVE  AND  NEGATIVE.  177 

3.  To  avoid  a  too  formal  way  of  reasoning. 

Argumentation  may  be  affirmative  or  negative,  simple  or 
combined,  direct  or  indirect. 

1.  Affirmative  and  negative  argumentation.  Affirmative 
argumentation  establishes  truth ;  negative  argumentation 
refutes  error. 

In  general,  refutation  does  not  suffice  without  proof,  and 
has  not  the  force  of  proof.  We  are  more  inclined  to  refute 
than  to  prove,  to  destroy  than  to  build  up.  It  is  more  easy, 
more  flattering  to  self-love,  more  in  accordance  with  our 
natural  passions. 

Every  one  is  eloquent  in  anger ;  love,  and  peace  sel- 
dom make  men  eloquent.  In  the  pulpit,  affirmative  argu- 
mentation is  of  the  highest  value.  In  morality  and  in  re- 
ligion, it  is  much  more  important  to  give  assurance  of  truth, 
than  to  refute  error.  Whence  springs  the  hatred  of  evil  in 
the  christian  soul  ?  From  the  affirmation  of  good,  as 
every  one  knows  who  has  had  a  divine  experience  of  grace. 
This  is  what  preaching  should  aim  to  secure.  It  is  not  enough 
to  clear  the  ground  of  error,  for  christian  life  is  not  a  va- 
cuum, it  is  a  plenum.  What  Quintilian  says  of  the  greater 
difficulty  of  refutation,  difficilius  est  defendere  quam  accusare* 
is  true  of  pleading,  not  of  the  sermon.  Nevertheless,  we 
must  abound  in  proof;  when  we  have  proved,  refutation  is 
already  well  advanced.  Proof  should  absorb  error.  Even 
in  christian  conversations,  we  must  endeavor  rather  to  ab- 
as it  is  in  many  modern  examples,  we  are  at  first  tempted  to  attribute 
to  philosophy  the  impression  we  receive  from  it ;  but  eloquence  is 
something  more  popular ;  it  is  the  power  of  making  the  primitive 
chords  of  the  soul  (its  purely  human  elements)  vibrate  within  us — 
it  is  in  this  and  nothing  else,  that  we  acknowledge  the  orator.'* 
ViNET,  Chrestomathie  franraise,  tome  iii.  Reflections  a  propos  du 
Discoursde  Royer  Collard  sur  le  projet  de  loi  relatif  au  sacrilege. 

*  Quintilian,  lib.  v.,  cap.  xiii. 


178  AFFIEMATIYE  AND  NEGATIVE. 

sorb  than  refute  error,  to  conquer  without  being  obliged  to 
pursue  fugitives.  Strictly,  he  who  has  proved,  has  done 
everything;  he  is  not  obliged  to  refute  objections.  But 
though  he  may  maintain  his  right,  summwn  jus^  he  must  not 
avail  himself  of  it.  It  is  only  light  that  can  swallow  up 
darkness  ;  we  are  to  "  overcome  evil  with  good."  (Romans, 
xii.  21.)  Yes,  but  we  are  to  condescend  to  the  weaknesses 
and  necessities  of  our  brethren,  which  are  as  our  own  weak- 
nesses and  necessities.  God,  in  restoring  us  to  the  truth,  had 
to  overthrow  within  us  many  idols  of  our  heart,  of  our  un- 
derstanding; he  destroyed  much,  refuted  much,  before  he 
proved ;  he  disabused  us  before  he  showed  us  his  glory ; 
many  souls  have  acquired  a  taste  of  the  truth  through  a  dis- 
taste of  earthly  things.  What  God  does,  we  should  do  also. 
Proof  often  needs  refutation  as  a  supplement,  and  even  as  a 
complement.  It  often  happens  that  a  mere  refutation  be- 
comes proof  in  the  soul  of  the  hearer.  There  are  even  cases 
in  which  refutation  suffices,  without  proof,  when  the  subject 
permits  of  sous-entendre.  Discourse  may  very  properly  con- 
sist altogether  of  refutation.* 

In  refutation,  we  recommend  above  all  things  perfect 
sincerity.  In  morality,  in  prudence,  in  art,  it  is  a  rule. 
One  may  experience  surprise  and  a  species  of  fear  in 
anticipation  of  an  objection,  which  turns  into  delight  when  it 
is  refuted.  Confidence  in  the  orator  is  hereby  increased.  In 
this  respect,  Saurin  is  a  model.  He  has  a  courage  in  expos- 
ing objections,  which  tends  to  produce  a  powerful  impression. f 
Accordingly,  it  is  important  to  determine  well  the  import 
and  extent  of  objections.  We  are  not  as  strict  with  our- 
selves in  the  pulpit  as  we  ought  to  be.     We  are  inclined  to 

*  Such  is  the  sermon  of  Massillon  sur  U  jcunc,  and  his  conversa- 
tion 8ur  le  Zele  pour  le  salut  des  ames.  We  find  striking  examples  also, 
in  Bourdaloue  and  Saurin. 

f  See  the  first  part  of  the  Sermon  sur  le  Renvoi  de  la  conversion^ 
tome  i.,  nouvelle  edition. 


SIMPLE  AND   COMBINED  AKGUMENTATION.  179 

take  with  some  abatement,  certain  rules  which  other  kinds 
of  eloquence  do  not  allow  to  be  transgressed.  The  pulpit 
enjoys  a  privilege  no  less  hurtful  than  advantageous  ;  it  is, 
that  debate  is  excluded  from  it,  that  replies  are  not  possible 
or  admissible ;  yet,  taking  us  as  we  are,  we  surely  have  need 
of  them.  As  there  are  none  to  contradict  us  in  the  temple, 
we  should  prescribe  to  ourselves  the  greater  rigor  in  our  ar. 
gumentation.  In  this  respect,  too,  Saurin  is  an  excellent 
model.  He  may  even  be  thought  sometimes  to  carry  his 
rigor  to  excess. 

In  all  cases  in  which  it  seems  necessary,  we  must  divide 
the  difficulty.  Refutation  ordinarily  gains  by  a  division  of 
the  objection.  It  is  seldom  that  one  reply  alone  can  demol- 
ish directly  with  a  single  stroke,  all  parts  of  the  error.  Such 
orators  as  Bourdaloue  and  Massillon*  have  perhaps  pursued 
this  method  too  far,  but  used  with  moderation,  it  is  of  great 
advantage  in  refutation.  The  hearer  sees  you  conqueror 
many  times  in  succession  ;  he  perceives  that  there  are  many 
errors  on  the  other  side,  and  many  truths  on  yours.  We 
shall  always  be  feeble,  if  we  have  no  regard  to  the  contradictor 
which  exists  in  souls.    A  discussion  is  necessary  in  a  sermon. 

Finally,  we  must  know  how  to  take  the  offensive,  and,  if 
possible,  turn  the  objection  into  a  proof.  Prolonging  the  de- 
fensive, enfeebles  us ;  and  to  defend  ourselves  to  advantage, 
we  must  make  the  attack.  Great  preachers  have  always  ob- 
served this  rule.  In  the  error  which  we  decompose  or  attack, 
we  should  find  the  very  germs  of  truth,  f 

2.  Simple  and  combined,  (or  ffraduaied,)  argumentation. — 
We  do  not  distinguish  here  between  the  purely  external  forms 

*  Bourdaloue,  second  part  of  the  Sermon  sur  VAumbne,  (Edition 
Lefevre,  tome  ii.,  p.  80,)  and  Massillon,  Sermon  sur  la  Verite,  d'un 
Avenir.     Edition  Lefevre,  tome  i.,  p.  167. 

f  See  the  Sermon  of  Saurin,  surVAumdne;  et  les  conferences  deM-ASr 
snxoN. 


180  SIMPLE  AND   COMBINED  AEG  U MENTATION. 

of  reasoning,  or  figures  of  logic,  such  as  the  syllogism,  the 
enthymeme  and  the  dilemma  ;  the  syllogism,  the  ideal  form 
which  very  rarely  appears ;  the  enthymeme,  which  is  the 
most  frequent;  the  dilemma,  the  truly  oratorical  form. 
The  forms  we  have  in  view  are  less  external,  and  affect 
more  the  very  foundation  of  thought.  After  this  statement, 
we  distinguish — 

(1.)  Proof  a  priori^  or  descending,  which,  from  a  given  prin- 
ciple, descends  to  the  consequence,  which  proves  the  fact  from 
its  cause  or  its  nature ;  and  proof,  a  posteriori^  or  ascending, 
which,  from  a  known  consequence,  strives  to  ascend  to  the 
principle,  which  proves  the  fact  by  its  effects.  I  prove  a 
priori^  that  lying  is  offensive  to  God,  because  He  is  a  God  of 
truth ;  I  prove  the  same  a  posteriori^  by  the  manifestations 
which  God  has  given  of  his  abhorrence  of  lying.  I  prove  a 
priori,  that  covetousness  is  idolatry,  from  the  very  nature  of 
covetousness,  and  I  prove  the  same  a  posteriori,  from  the 
effects  of  covetousness,  which  are  the  same  with  those  of 
idolatry,  properly  so-called.  I  prove  a  priori,  that  bad  com- 
panions are  hurtful,  because  whatever  is  peculiar  to  them, 
tends  to  evil,  and  I  prove  the  same  a  posteriori,  from  ex- 
amples :  "  God  has  helped  him,  for  he  asked  aid  from  God," 
or  again,  "  God  has  helped  him,  for  he  has  done  what  he  could 
not  have  done  without  God." 

(2.)  Analytical  and  synthetical  argumentation.  According 
to  the  first  form  I  announce  the  truth  I  would  prove,  and  I 
prove  it  by  decomposing  it,  either  in  its  parts  or  in  its  ef- 
fects ;  according  to  the  other  method,  I  gradually  form  the 
truth  from  the  elements  which  enter  into  its  composition. 

The  latter  process  is  scarcely  proper  in  the  pulpit.  When  we 
have  only  to  put  the  understanding  under  a  kind  of  constraint, 
when  we  have  only  to  reduce  an  adversary  to  silence,  this 
method  to  which  Socrates  has  given  his  name,  may  certainly 
be  employed  with  great  propriety.  We  remark  it  in  many  of 


SIMPLE   AND  COMBINED  ARGUMENTATION.  181 

our  Lord's  discourses ;  but  it  is  interesting  to  observe,  that 
he  uses  it  rather  to  confound  his  unprincipled  adversaries 
than  to  instruct  well-disposed  hearers.  As  far  as  it  is  em- 
ployed with  captiousness  and  subtlety,*  it  is  perfectly  adapted 
to  minds  destitute  of  benevolence  and  sincerity,  and  that 
would  set  themselves  against  the  truth,  if  it  should  be  pre- 
sented to  them  directly ;  but  as  thus  employed  it  is  not  ne- 
cessary to  the  preacher.  He  must  not  regard  his  adversa- 
ries as  unprincipled  hearers,  as  enemies  whom  he  may  en- 
tangle in  skilfully-prepared  nets.  Their  presence  in  the  tem- 
ple implies,  in  respect  to  the  greater  part,  that  they  are  un- 
der some  other  influence  than  that  of  malevolence ;  and  those 
of  them  who  may  seem  to  have  this  disposition,  cannot  be  dis- 
criminated and  taken  personally  apart  in  the  assembly ;  can- 
not be  confounded  since  they  have  made  no  attack,  cannot 
be  reduced  to  a  silence  which  they  have  not  disturbed.  The 
preacher's  design  moreover  is  revealed  or  betrayed  by  his 
text.  And  after  all,  these  means  are  not  the  best  for  disarming 
malevolence.  We  must  exhibit  confidence  even  towards 
those  who  do  not  deserve  it.  Let  us  add  that  this  method 
almost  necessarily  excludes  eloquence. 

Under  these  different  forms  argumentation  is  simple  or 
elementary,  when,  with  more  or  less  force,  it  confines  itself 
to  prove  the  truth  of  one  proposition  or  the  falsity  of  an- 
other. The  different  moral  sentiments  or  effects  which  may 
result  from  proof,  indignation,  joy,  courage,  do  not  thus  en- 
ter into  consideration.  But  when  the  proof  is  complicated  or 
enforced  with  another  element,  when  the  proof  is,  so  to  speak, 
accentuated,  becomes  more  pointed  or  more  steeled,  when 
truth  or  error,  in  their  own  nature  impersonal,  becomes  a 
personal  fact,  when  the  adversary  finds  himself  placed,  less 
between  truth  and  error  than  between  error  and  the  first 

*  In  saying,  Dolus  an  virtus  quis  in  hoste  requiraty  this  is  not  the 
case.     Virgil,  ^neid,  ii.  390. 


182  SIMPLE  AND   COMBINED   ARGUMENTATION. 

principles  of  good  sense  or  of  instinct,  then  the  argumenta- 
tion, which  was  elementary,  becomes  combined  or  graduated  ; 
it  includes  an  element  which  it  could  not  include  without 
ceasing  to  be  complete.  Perhaps  it  is  scarcely  anything 
more  than  one  of  its  essential  elements  put  into  prominence, 
in  relief;  a  stone  cut  in  order  to  render  it  more  brilliant. 

The  first  of  the  forms  of  combined  argumentation  is  the  re- 
ductioadabsurdum,  reduction  to  the  contradictory  or  the  offens- 
ive. All  reasoning  is  impliedly  a  reductio  ad  absurdum^  since, 
if  it  is  just,  it  must  always  reduce  the  hearer  to  the  alternative 
of  either  accepting  its  conclusions  or  rejecting  some  truth  of 
certainty  and  common  sense.  It  would  always  lead  us  to 
this,  it  would  push  us  to  this  extremity.  The  reductio  ad 
absurdum  becomes  a  particular  form  of  argumentation,  only 
when  supposing  the  proposition  which  is  denied  to  be  true, 
we  draw  from  it  whatever  it  contains,  that  is  to  say,  its  ob- 
ject, or  its  principle,  or  its  consequences.  It  compels  error 
to  refute  itself  It  employs  the  swan  to  cover  the  eggs  of 
the  vulture  or  the  crow.  It  leaves  the  tares  to  grow  till  the 
harvest,  that  we  may  see  from  the  ear  what  seed  was  sown. 

A  very  simple  and  short  method  of  reducing  to  absurdity, 
is  to  transfer  the  idea  to  its  more  naked  expression  ;  that  is, 
avoiding  the  illusion  of  words  to  name  the  object  by  its  true 
name ;  but  what  is  its  true  name  1  There  may  not  be  agree- 
ment as  to  this ;  and  the  error  from  this  means  may  be  very 
great.  "  What  is  a  throne  V  said  Napoleon.  "  A  piece  of 
velvet  stretched  upon  four  pieces  of  wood."  The  periphrasis 
which  one  opposes  to  the  true  name,  is  often  the  true  name. 
Voltaire  makes  a  quaker  to  say :  "  Our  God  who  has  com- 
manded us  to  love  our  enemies  and  to  suffer  without  com- 
plaint, doubtless  does  not  desire  that  we  should  cross  the  sea 
in  order  to'tiugage  in  butchering  our  brethren,  because  red- 
coated  murderers  with  a  cap  two  feet  high,  enlist  citizens  by 
making  a  noise  on  an  ass's  skin  well-stretched." 


SIMPLE  AND  COMBINED  ARGUMENTATION.  183 

The  whole  artifice  of  the  Persian  Letters,  consists  in 
making  persons  name  and  describe  things,  who  are  not  ac- 
quainted with  conventional  and  current  notions.  The  pope 
appears  here  under  the  designation  of  muphti,  the  monk  un- 
der that  of  dervish. 

This  means,  we  must  see,  is  scarcely  admissible  in  the  pulpit. 

The  most  regular  and  least  objectionable  form  consists  in 
showing  the  characteristics  of  the  object,  its  principles  and 
its  consequences.  Diogenes  made  a  reductio  ad  absurdum 
in  action,  when  he  cast  an  unfeathered  cock  before  Plato.  It 
is  often  only  necessary  to  deprive  the  cock  of  his  feathers ; 
that  is  to  say,  to  deprive  the  object  of  all  the  adventitious 
ideas  which  have  connected  themselves  with  it  by  degrees 
from  the  effects  of  time ;  to  translate  a  case  with  which  cus- 
tom has  familiarized  us  into  another,  as  to  which  custom  has 
not  yet  had  this  influence ;  to  show  the  perfect  identity  of 
that  which  we  repel  with  that  which  we  accept.* 

The  second  form  of  combined  or  graduated  argumentation, 
is  the  argument  ad  kominem.  We  may  say,  indeed,  that  all 
arguments  are  ad  hominem,  or  that  the  argument  ad  homi- 
nem  is  comprised  in  every  argument,  in  this  sense,  that  we 
avail  ourselves  against  the  hearer  of  that  in  which  he  tacitly 
at  least  agrees  with  us. 

But  the  argument  ad  hominem  consists,  especially,  in 
making  an  appeal  to  something  which  the  person  whom  we 

*  Examples  of  reductio  ad  absurdum  : 

a.  From  the  character  of  the  object.  The  discourse  of  Mira- 
beau,  sur  la  banqueroie,  tome  i.,  p.  399. 

b.  From  principles  or  consequences.  Ciceko,  Pro  Milone,  vii. 
Massillon,  Sermon  sur  la  Verite  dhm  avenir,  edition  Mequignon, 
tome  ii.,  p.  249  ;  and  Sermon  sur  le  Respect  humain,  edit.  Mequig- 
non, tomeiii.,  p.  199.  Bourdeloxie,  Caremei.  ancienne  edition,  page 
149.  Pascal,  Pensees,  partie  ii.,  petite  edition  de  Bure,  tome  ii., 
p.  17.  Lamennais,  Importance  de  la  Religion  par  rapport  a  Dieu. 
{Chrestomathie,  tome  iii.,  p.  178,  troisieme  edition.) 


184  SIMPLE  AND  COMBINED  ARGUMENTATION. 

wish  to  convince  or  confute  has  done  or  said,  in  no  connec- 
tion with  the  discussion.  We  commonly  name  "many  things 
the  argument  ad  hominem^  from  which  it  must  be  distin- 
guished. Thus,  referring  to  a  personal  reminiscence  of  the 
hearer  ;*  creating  in  the  hearer  an  interest  in  conformity  with 
the  import  of  our  conclusion,!  arguing  from  the  contrariety 
of  the  hearer's  conduct  to  his  doctrine,  opposing  his  opinion 
to  his  character.  This  last  refers  us  to  a  general  and  delicate 
question.  Is  a  doctrine  responsible  for  the  character  of  those 
who  profess  and  maintain  it  1  It  would  be  absurd  to  affirm  ab- 
solutely and  in  every  case,  "  This  man  is  dishonest,  his  opin- 
ions are  of  course  false."  Though  it  were  true  that  truth 
itself  is  adulterated  and  corrupted  in  corrupt  hearts,  it  would 
be  not  the  less  contrary  to  all  good  logic  to  condemn  an 
opinion  or  principle  on  account  of  the  dishonorable  or  ques- 
tionable character  of  him  who  professes  it.  On  the  con- 
trary, these  two  things  must  be  separated.  We  must  indeed 
say,  Timeo  Danaos  et  dona  ferentes  ;  but  we  must  regard  the 
idea  and  the  man,  apart  from  one  another.  I  would  say 
with  Mirabeau  :  "  It  has  been  proposed  to  you  to  judge  of 
the  question,  by  comparing  the  character  of  the  persons  who 
hold  the  affirmative,  with  that  of  those  who  hold  the  negative. 
I  cannot  follow  this  example.''^; 

Still,  when  we  are  convinced  that  a  doctrine  is  false,  it  is 
very  lawful  to  judge  of  the  tree  by  its  fruits,  and  to  bring  it 
into  antecedent  suspicion  by  the  life  which  it  produces, 
or  to  confirm  the  evil  we  have  said  of  it,  by  the  evil  which 
flows  from  it.  All  this  however  is  not  the  argument  ad 
hominem.     There  are  two  things  to  which  I  give  this  name  : 

a.  Putting  the  adversary  in  direct  contradiction  with  the 

*  See  2  Corinthians,  vii.  9-11. 
f  The  "  sans  dot  "  of  Harpagon. 

X  MiKABEAU,  Discours  sur  Vexercise  du  droit  de  la  paix  et  de  la 
guerre. 


SIMPLE  AND   COMBINED  AEGUMENTATION.  185 

words  he  has  pronounced  or  the  acts  he  has  performed.  Un- 
derstand us  well.  We  should  be  dishonest  in  using  this 
means,  if  we  should  make  an  ill  use  of  it.  It  does  not  fol- 
low from  a  man's  having  been  of  a  different  opinion  formerly, 
that  he  is  wi'ong  in  thinking  as  he  now  does.  A  man  is  often 
reproached  for  making  progress,  when  reproached  vnth  in- 
consistency. Though  he  does  not  dissemble  the  fact  of  his 
having  changed,  we  cannot  take  advantage  of  it  against  him. 
But  we  may  represent  a  man's  words  and  actions  as  a 
testimony  which,  in  other  circumstances,  he  rendered  to  the 
truth  which  he  now  discards,  assuming  that  then  he  was  bet- 
ter informed,  less  prejudiced,  in  better  circumstances  for 
judging  rightly.  We  may  often  thus  recall  to  him  an 
honorable  memorial,  which  encourages  and  reproves  without 
mortifying  him.  * 

b.  Showing  the  hearer,  that  an  opinion  such  as  he  does 
hold,  draws  after  it  necessarily  that  which  he  does  not  hold  ; 
thus  seizing,  in  order  to  turn  it  against  him,  a  weapon 
which  he  himself  has  unconsiously  and  involuntarily  furnished. 
But  may  we  do  this,  whether  we  partake  or  do  not  partake 
with  him  in  this  opinion  ?  Or  whether  we  hold  or  do  not 
hold  it  in  the  sense  in  which  he  holds  it  1 

If,  when  we  do  not  hold  it,  the  use  we  make  of  it  implies 
that  we  do,  we  assuredly  are  in  the  wrong.  But  then  it  will 
be  asked,  what  use  may  we  make  in  argumentation  of  an 
opinion  which  we  neither  hold,  nor  admit  to  be  true  1    This  : 

*  Examples :  Iphigenie  to  Agamemnon,  *'  Mon  pere  etc."  Raoine, 
Iphigenie,  acte  iv.,  scene  iv. 

Burrhus  to  Nero :  "Ah  !  de  vos  premiers  ans  etc."  Racine,  Brit- 
annicus,  acte  iv.,  scene  iii. 

Cicero,  Pro  Ligario,  Ch.  xi.  Flavien  to  Tlieodosius  :  "  Mais,  est-il 
besoin  de  rappeler  etc."    See  Yillemain,  Melanges,  tome  iii. 

Pelisson  to  Louis  XIV.  Peroration  of  the  second  discourse  to  the 
King  for  M.  Fouquet.  (See  the  fragment  in  the  Chrestarnathie  /ran- 
faiae,  tome  ii.,  p.  254,  troisieme  edition.) 


186  DIRECT  AND  INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION. 

to  show  the  dishonesty  of  the  adversary,  that  his  opinion, 
true  or  false,  would  lead  to  the  end  to  which  we  bring  him, 
but  that  he  does  not  fully  admit  the  consequences  of  his 
principle,  or  applies  it  in  a  wrong  sense,  or  does  not  seriously 
hold  his  own  opinion,  and  does  not  allow  to  it  its  natural 
consequences.  *  As  to  the  use  of  this  means  in  the  pulpit, 
it  may  be  remarked,  that  a  church  possesses  few  facts  or 
words  distinctively  peculiar  to  it,  which  may  be  urged 
against  it ;  human  nature  is  the  adversary  to  be  confounded. 

Again,  the  use  of  this  means,  everywhere  dangerous, 
is  specially  so  in  the  pulpit. 

We  may  regard  the  parable  as  a  form  of  the  argument 
ad  hominem.jf 

3.  Direct  and  indirect  Argumentation.  Argumentation  is 
direct  when  we  draw  the  proof  either  from  the  nature  of 
the  object,  or  from  its  causes,  or  from  its  effects,  or  finally 
from  experience  and  authority.  We  have,  until  now,  had 
regard  to  this  only.  It  is  indirect  or  lateral,  when  we  seek 
some  fact  which  is  neither  the  object  itself  nor  the  cause,  nor 
the  effect,  but  which,  notwithstanding,  cannot  be  admitted 
without  admitting  also  the  fact  which  is  in  question. 

The  human  mind  is  so  formed  that  it  often  prefers  the  reflec- 
tion of  light  to  light  itself,  the  echo  of  the  voice  to  the  voice. 
By  examining  ourselves,  we  find  that  in  almost  all  discussions 
we  tend  rapidly  and  imperceptibly  towards  indirect  proof. 
Man  in  everything  submits  more  readily  to  indirect  constraint. 
The  final  judgment  that  springs  from  a  syllogism  is  a  kind  of 
judgment  by  constraint.     I  do  not  think  we  should  indulge 

*  Tlius  may  be  explained  :  Matthew,  xii.  27,  "  If  I  cast  out,  etc." 
Luke,  xix.  22,  "Tliose  wicked  servants,  etc."  1  Corinthians,  xv.  29, 
"What  then  shall  tliey  do  who  are  baptized  for  the  dead,  if,  etc." 
Acts,  xvii.  23,  "  For  as  I  passed  b}^  etc."  and  28,  29,  "  For  to  him, 
etc."     John,  vii.  '22,  23,  "Moses  commanded  j^ou,  etc." 

f  A  beautiful  example  furnished  by  Bridaine,  after  that  of  the 
prophet  Nathan.     See  Mauey,  Eloquence  de  la  Chair  e,  xx. 


DIRECT  AND  INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION.        187 

freely  an  inclination  which  is  not  always  without  weakness.  I 
think  we  should  accustom  the  mind  to  look  truth  in  the  face, 
to  seek  truth  at  her  own  home  and  not  at  another's  ;  but  it  is 
also  important  that  we  see  (and  we  do  this  peculiarly  through 
indirect  or  lateral  argumentation)  from  how  many  directions 
the  light  comes  to  us  at  the  same  moment,  that  all  things  con- 
cur in  proving  what  is  true,  that  tru^h  is  connected  with  every- 
thing, that  "  all  things  answer  to  one  another."  (Proverbs, 
xvi.  4.)  It  is  to  this,  as  to  impressions  from  surprise,  that 
the  peculiar  virtue  of  indirect  argumentation  is  to  be  ascribed. 
We  add  that  there  are  some  subjects  in  which,  whether  it  be 
from  the  evidence  or  too  great  simplicity  of  the  object,  di- 
rect argumentation  is  almost  impossible  ;  there  are  others,  on 
the  contrary,  in  which  it  is  very  possible,  and  much  in  place.  * 

If  we  would  see  how  much  the  indirect  proof  is  to  be  pre- 
ferred before  the  other  on  certain  subjects,  we  may  compare 
the  two  sermons  of  Saurin  and  Massillon,  on  the  Divinity  of 
Jesus  Christ.  In  the  discourse  of  Massillon  the  proof  of  the 
doctrine  is  drawn  from  the  lustre  of  Christ's  ministry  and 
the  spirit  of  that  ministry,  on  this  ground,  that  all  that  lustre 
is  without  meaning  and  a  contradiction,  and  thus,  all  that 
spirit  falsifies  itself,  if  Jesus  Christ  is  not  God.  The  plan  of 
Saurin  is  this  :  1.  Jesus  Christ  supremely  adorable  and  su- 
premely adored,  according  to  Scripture.  2.  Contradiction 
between  the  idea  and  the  fact  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  God, 
since  it  is  only  to  God  that  all  the  foregoing  things  are  ap- 
plicable. (This  should  have  been,  not  a  second  part,  but  the 
conclusion  of  the  first  ;  Saurin  moreover  has  completed  it 
only  by  an  incidental  discussion.)  3.  Our  ideas  on  this 
point  are  conformed  perfectly  to  those  of  the  times^  the 
orthodoxy  of  which  is  least  to  be  suspected.  For  the 
reasons  which  I  have  expressed  I  think  indirect  argumentar 
tion  more  oratorical  and  popular  than  the  other  ;  for  the 

*  As  on  the  subject  of  the  Recompense  des  saints.     Boubdaloue. 


188        DIEECT  AND  INDIKECT  AEGUMENTATION. 

same  reasons,  he  who  excels  in  direct  argumentation  appears 
to  me  the  greater  genius.  In  some  cases  no  argumentation 
is  so  easy  as  the  indirect,  and  this  consideration  exalts,  in  my 
view,  the  merit  of  the  orators  who  excel  in  direct  argumenta- 
tion, power  in  which  ought  to  be  especially  aimed  at.  Bour- 
daloue  in  this  kind  is  distinguished  by  a  virtuosite,*  by  a 
courage  which  nothing  intimidates. 

(1.)  Among  the  forms  of  indirect  argumentation  the  chief 
place  belongs  to  apagogic  argumentation,  or  argumentation  by 
ablation.  In  this  which  is  the  inverse  way,  or  proof  by  re- 
trenchment, the  orator,  undertakes  to  show  the  nature  of  one 
thing  by  the  nature  of  another  which  is  opposed  to  it,  or  by 
the  effects  of  its  absence ;  as  the  utility  of  science  from  the 
consequences  of  ignorance,  the  beauty  of  virtue  from  the  de- 
formity of  vice,  the  tranquillity  of  faith  from  the  perturba- 
tions of  unbelief.  Just  as  we  ascertain  the  capacity  of  a  ves- 
sel alike  by  filling  and  by  emptying  it,  and  prove  addition 
by  subtraction.  This  method  is  very  natural  to  the  human 
mind,  and  very  agreeable  to  the  hearers,  to  whom  very  often 
the  nature  of  a  thing  is  best  made  known  by  the  effects  of  its 
absence.  And  in  particular,  it  may  doubtless  be  said  with 
truth,  that  nothing  makes  the  majority  of  men  so  sensible  to 
the  goodness  of  conduct  which  is  conformed  to  the  law,  as  a 
view  of  conduct  which  is  diametrically  opposed  to  it.  It  was 
doubtless  this  fact  which  led  Massillon,  when  preaching  to 
ecclesiastics  on  the  necessity  of  a  good  example,  to  dwell 
chiefly  on  the  consequences  of  a  bad  example.  He  shows  in 
this  discourse,  that  without  a  good  example,  all  the  functions 
of  the  priest  are  unprofitable  and  are  even  an  occasion  of 
falling  and  of  scandal  to  the  poople  whom  God  has  entrusted 
to  him.f  Good  example,  undoubtedly,  has  positive  and  ap- 
preciable advantages  which  Massillon  might  have  enumer- 

*  This  is  a  new  word,  which  I  can  find  in  no  Lexicon. — Tr. 
f  Massillon,  conferences^  edition  Mequignon,  tome  xiii.,  p.  2 


DIRECT  AISTD  INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION.        189 

ated;  but  he  judged  correctly,  we  think,  that  his  audi- 
tory would  be  more  impressed  by  the  evil  consequences  of 
bad  example,  which  are  more  manifest  and,  so  to  speak, 
more  palpable.  It  is  certain  that  as  good^  or  conformity  to 
law,  and  happiness,  or  conformity  with  interest,  are  just  what 
should  be  and  what  order  requires,  they  are  less  striking 
than  their  contraries,  and  are  very  often  in  our  view,  but  the 
mere  absence  of  evil  and  misery ;  so  that  good  which  is  es- 
sentially positive,  appears  negative  to  us,  and  evil  which  is 
essentially  negative,  appears  positive. 

(2.)  Next  to  apagogic  argument  or  argument  from  ablation, 
we  may  name  refutation,  which  under  another  point  of  view 
we  have  already  contemplated.  This  indeed  is  also  a  form 
of  indirect  argumentation,  whether  from  its  constraining  the 
mind  by  the  removal  of  all  objections,  to  embrace  truth,  even 
without  knowing  it,*  as  if  in  despair  of  the  cause  ;  or  because 
refutation,  when  it  is  all  that  it  may  be,  becomes  a  proof, 
which  perhaps  should  always  have  place,  when  the  principle 
which  is  alleged  is  true.  We  may  not  be  able  to  resist 
the  offence  of  the  cross  without  revealing  the  glory  of  the 
cross.  When  there  is  no  possible  medium  between  two  op- 
posed propositions,  the  exclusion  of  one  establishes  the  other, 
and  even  renders  it  conspicuous,  f 

(3.)  We  name,  thirdly,  the  argument  ex  adverso,  which  con- 
sists in  opposing  one  fact  to  another  contrary  fact,  which  oc- 
curred in  exactly  parallel  circumstances.  This  is  not  so 
much  an  argument  as  the  means  of  giving  more  point  to  an 
argument.    Quaedam  argumenta,  says  Quintilian,  ponere  satis 

*  As  examples,  we  cite  the  plan  of  a  sermon  of  Massillon  on  le  Par- 
don des  offenses.  (Edition  Lefevre,  i.  146  ;  and  his  Sermon  sur  la 
Priere,  ibid.,  i.  198. 

■(•  See  Regitis,  ii.  119,  sur  le  support  du  prochain;  Bourdaloue  i. 
560,  edition  Lefevre,  sur  le  scandale  de  la  croix  ;  Manuel,  Sermons,  i., 
Faul  devant  Festus;  Saurin,  tome  i.  39,  et  tome  i.  107,  meme  sujet. 


190  DIEECT  AND  INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION. 

non  est,  adjuvanda  sunt.*  This  is  a  most  powerful  means, 
when  the  circumstances  are  strictly  parallel,  and  the  compar- 
ison of  course  legitimate.  Pascal's  fine  opposition  of  the  max- 
ims of  the  Jesuits  on  homicide  to  the  rules  which  legal  justice 
folio ws,f  assumes  the  anterior  demonstration  of  a  truth ;  this 
opposition,  of  itself,  proves  nothing. 

We  see  the  same  in  the  following  passage  from  the  sermon 
of  Bourdaloue,  on  the  Scandal  of  the  Cross,  "  Behold  the 
marvellous  fruits  of  grace,  which  this  thought  has  produced 
in  the  saints,  the  miracles  of  virtue,  the  heroic  conversions, 
the  renunciations  of  the  world,  the  fervors  of  penitence,  the 
noble  zeal  of  martyrdom.  What  produced  all  this  ?  The 
view  of  a  Godman  and  a  God  sacrificed  for  the  salvation  of 
man.  This  it  was  that  won  their  hearts,  that  filled  them  with 
rapture,  with  transport ;  and  yet,  christians,  it  is  this  which 
gives  us  offence,  offence  which  keeps  us  in  a  loose,  impure, 
irregular  life,  that  is  to  say,  in  a  life  in  which  we  do  nothing 
for  God,  and  in  which  we  keep  ourselves  constantly  estranged 
from  Him.  J 

Let  us  hear  again  Voltaire,  in  the  Henriade,  when  he  makes 
President  Potier  say — 

Infideles  pasteurs,  indignes  citoyens, 
Que  vous  ressemblez  mal  a  ces  premiers  Chretiens 
Qui,  bravant  tous  les  dieux  de  metal  ou  de  platre, 
Marchaient  sans  murmurer  sous  un  maitre  idolatre, 
Expirant  sans  se  plaindre,  et  sur  les  echafauds 
Sanglants,  percees  de  coups,  benissaient  leurs  bourreaux ! 
Eux  seuls  etaient  Chretiens,  je  n'en  connais  point  d'autres. 
Ds  mouraient  pour  leurs  rois,  vous  massacrez  les  votres. 

*  QuiNTiLiAN,  lib.  v.,  cap.  xii.,  "Some  arguments,  it  is  not  enough 
merely  to  propose,  they  are  to  be  set  oflf  to  advantage." — ^Tr. 

•j-  Pascal,  Quatorzieme  Provinciale. 

X  Bourdaloue,  Edition  Lefevre,  tome  i.,  p.  663,  col.  1.  See,  also,  Mas- 
billon,  Avent,  Sermon  sur  la  Divinite  de  Jems  Christ,  first  part 
"Mais  ici,  mes  fr^res,  etc."    (Edition  Lefevre,  tome i.,  p.  8Y.) 


PIEECT  AND   INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION.  191 

Et  Dieu,  que  vou8  plaignez  implacable  et  jalou^ 
S'il  aime  a  se  venger,  barbares,  c'est  de  vousl* 

The  contrast  is  a  complete  argument,  when  of  the  two 
facts  which  are  opposed,  one  is  authoritative,  the  citing  of 
which  is  citing  the  rule. 

With  contrast  we  unite  difference.  When  the  hearer  may- 
be inclined  to  apply  to  one  case  the  rules  of  another  ;  when 
an  accidental  or  accessory  resemblance  may  hinder  him  from 
seeing  an  essential  or  important  difference,  and  from  deciding 
according  to  that  difference,  it  is  useful,  with  a  view  to  proof, 
to  make  the  difference  very  prominent. 

..."  The  glory  of  his  ministry,"  says  Massillon,  in  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ,  "  is  the  most  firm  founda- 
tion of  our  faith,  the  spirit  of  his  ministry  is  the  only  rule 
of  our  conduct.  Now,  if  he  were  but  a  man  sent  from  God, 
the  glory  of  his  ministry  would  become  the  certain  occasion 
of  our  superstition  and  our  idolatry,  the  spirit  of  his  ministry 
would  be  the  fatal  snare  of  our  innocence.  Thus,  whether 
we  consider  the  glory  or  the  spirit  of  his  ministry,  the  glory 
of  his  divinity  remains  alike  and  irresistibly  established.f 

*  Voltaire,  La  Henriade,  Chant  vi. 

Unfaithful  pastors,  worthless  citizens, 
What  likeness  do  ye  bear  to  those  first  saints 
Who,  braving  all  gods  of  metal  and  of  plaster, 
Meekly  submissive  to  their  pagan  lords. 
Without  complaining,  yielded  up  their  life, 
And  on  the  scaffold,  bleeding,  pierced  with  wounds, 
God's  blessing  on  their  cruel  murderers  sought. 
They,  they  alone  the  Christian  name  deserve. 
Others  may  claim  it  not.     They,  for  their  kingg 
Poured  out  their  blood,  yours  you  massacre, 
And  God  whom  you  describe  implacable 
And  jealous,  will,  if  to  avenge  himself,  he  purpose, 
Make  you,  barbarians!  victims." — ^Tr. 

f  Edition  Lefevre,  tome  i.,  p.  88,  col.  1.    See,  also,  the  Sermon,  sur 


192  DIRECT  AND  DTDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION. 

It  is  the  same  as  to  resemblance,  where  we  would  see  no- 
thing but  difference.     Thus  Bourdaloue : 

"  Ah !  Christians,  permit  me  to  make  a  reflection  here, 
very  painful  both  to  you  and  myself,  but  which  will  seem  to 
you  very  touching  and  very  edifying.  We  deplore  the  fate 
of  the  Jews,  who,  though  they  had  the  advantage  of  seeing 
Christ  born  among  them  and  for  them,  had  nevertheless  the 
misery  of  losing  that  inestimable  benefit,  and  of  being,  among 
all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  the  least  profited  by  this  happy 
birth.  We  commiserate,  and  while  we  commiserate,  con- 
demn them,  but  we  do  not  consider  that  in  this  very  respect 
their  condition,  or  rather  their  misery,  and  ours,  are  nearly  the 
same.  For  in  what  consisted  the  reprobation  of  the  Jews  ? 
In  this,  that  instead  of  the  true  Messiah,  whom  their  God 
had  appointed,  and  who  was  so  essential  to  them,  they 
imagined  another  accordant  with  their  gross  conceptions  and 
with  the  desires  of  their  heart ;  in  this,  that  they  despised 
Him  who  came  to  be  the  deliverer  of  their  souls,  and  thought 
only  of  one  from  whom  they  might  expect  the  imaginary 
restoration  of  their  worldly  prosperity  ;  in  this,  that  having 
confounded  the  two  kinds  of  salvation,  or  to  speak  more 
properly,  having  rejected  the  one,  and  vainly  flattered 
themselves  with  the  hope  of  the  other,  they  were  at  once 
disappointed  as  to  both,  for  them  there  was  no  redemp- 
tion." See,  says  St.  Augustine,  the  source  of  their  ruin : 
Temporalia  amittere  metuerunt,  et  oeterna  non  cogitaverunt,  ac 
sic  utrumque  amiserunt.  Now,  my  dear  hearers,  is  it  not 
identically  this  which  is  destroying  us  every  day?  For 
though  we  are  not  like  the  Jews  looking  for  another  Messiah, 
though  we  adhere  to  Him  whom  Heaven  has  sent  us,  is  it 
not  true  (let  us  confess  it  to  our  shame)  that  judging  from 
our  conduct,  we  are  in  regard  to  the  Saviour  sent  of  God,  in 

les  Communions  indignes,   edition  Mequignon,  tome  vi.  p.  256,  and 
Saukin,  tome  ii.,  pp.  384,  885,  nouvelle  edition. 


DIEECT  AND   INDIEECT  AEGUMENTATION.         193 

the  same  blindness  in  which  the  Jews  were,  and  in  which 
the}-  remain  in  regard  to  the  Messiah,  whom  they  look  for, 
and  in  whom  they  hope  f* 

To  conclude,  we  remark  in  general,  that  most  persons  judge 
only  by  comparison,  or  by  the  aid  of  comparison.  How  far 
should  we  accommodate  ourselves  to  this  disposition  1 

4.  To  this  class  of  arguments  belongs  that  which  is  called 
a  fortiori,  or  a  majore  ad  minus,  (argument  progressive.)  It 
consists  in  proving  that  a  thing  being  true  in  certain  circum- 
stances is  more  evidently  so  in  others,  which  have  the  same 
influence  with  the  first,  and  with  augmented  weight.  It  is 
strengthening  the  conclusion  by  strengthening  the  premises : 

1.  The  true  Christian  is  wise  ; 

2.  But  wisdom  includes  prudence,  or  prudence  is  a  part  of 
wisdom  ; 

3.  And  the  whole  implies  the  part ; 

4.  Therefore  Christians  are  prudent. 

There  is  in  this  argument  a  surplus,  or  superabundance ;  it 
consists  in  showing  this  ;  it  establishes  a  proof  as  more  than 
complete,  by  bringing  from  far  or  from  near,  a  fact  suited  to 
make  this  superabundance  prominent.  It  is  founded  on  the 
simple  idea,  that  the  greater  includes  the  less. 

This  argument  has  great  force  provided  the  difference  be- 
tween the  two  cases  is  mdeed  real,  and  that  there  is  no  essen- 
tial difference  between  them  of  which  one  may  avail  himself 
to  annul  or  impair  the  conclusion.  The  orator  must  also 
show  strongly  the  difference  which  is  in  favor  of  his  con- 
clusion.    The  two  cases  should  be  similar  and  unequal. 

The  argument  a  fortiori  is,  perhaps,  of  all  arguments,  that 

*  BouEDALOTJE,  Edition  Lefevre,  tome  i.,  p.  122,  col.  2,  sur  la  Na- 
tivite  de  Jesus  Christ.  See,  also,  the  sermon  sur  la  Resurrection  de 
Jesus  Christ.  Edition  Lefdvre,  tome  i.,  p.  453.  "  Car,  pour  develop- 
per.  .  .  .  ." 

9 


194        DIRECT  AND  INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION. 

which  orators  most  prefer.  Cicero  makes  skilful  and  fre* 
quent  use  of  it.     Thus,  in  the  discourse  pro  lege  Manilla  : 

"  Your  forefathers  often  engaged  in  war  to  i^venge  the  in- 
sults offered  to  their  merchants  and  seamen.  How  then 
ought  you  to  be  fired  when  you  call  to  mind  that  in  conse- 
quence of  a  single  express  so  many  thousand  Roman  citizens 
were  butchered  in  one  day  1  Corinth,  the  pride  and  orna- 
ment of  Greece,  was,  by  your  ancestors,  doomed  to  utter 
destruction  because  of  the  insolcHt  behavior  of  the  citizens 
to  their  ambassadors  ;  and  will  you  suffer  the  tyrant  to  es- 
cape with  impunity  by  whom  a  Consular  Senator  of  the  Ro- 
man people  was  condemned  to  be  bound,  scourged  and  put 
to  death  with  most  cruel  torments'?  Your  fathers  would  not 
permit  the  least  infringement  of  their  privileges  ;  and  will 
you  tamely  overlook  the  murder  of  Roman  citizens  "?  These 
avenged  even  a  verbal  insult  on  the  dignity  of  their  ambassa- 
dor ;  and  shall  the  blood  of  a  Roman  Senator,  shed  in  the 
most  cruel  manner,  cry  for  no  vengeance  from  you  1  Be- 
ware, citizens,  beware,  lest  as  it  was  glorious  for  them  to 
transmit  so  extensive  an  empire  to  posterity,  your  inability  to 
preserve  and  defend  it  prove  not  infamous  for  you."* 

And  in  the  first  against  Catiline  : 

"  Long  since,  O  Cataline,  ought  the  Consul  to  have  ordered 
thee  for  execution,  and  pointed  on  thy  own  head  that  ruin 
thou  hadst  been  long  meditating  against  us  all.  Could  that 
illustrious  citizen  Publius  Scipio,  sovereign  Pontiff,  but  in- 
vested with  no  public  magistracy,  kill  Tiberius  Gracchus  for 
raising  some  slight  commotion  in  the  commonwealth  ;  and 
shall  we.  Consuls,  suffer  Catiline  to  live  who  aims  at  laying 
waste  the  world  with  fire  and  sword  ?"  f 

Let  us  again  hear  Mirabeau,  in  his  discourse  on  the  plan 
of  M.  Necker  :  "  Well,  gentlemen,  you  remember  there  was 
a  ridiculous  excitement  at  the  Palais  Royal,  a  laughable  in- 
*  Duncan's  translation.  f  Duncan's  translation. 


DIEECT  AND  INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION.        195 

surrection  which  never  haxi  any  importance  except  in  weak 
imaginations  or  the  perverse  designs  of  certain  unprincipled 
men.  You  heard,  not  long  since,  these  furious  words  :  Cati- 
line is  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  and  we  deliberate  !  And  cer- 
tainly there  was  about  us,  neither  Catiline,  nor  perils,  nor 
factions,  nor  Rome.  But  to  day  bankruptcy,  hideous  bank- 
ruptcy, is  before  us  ;  it  threatens  to  consume  you,  your 
property,  your  honor — and  you  deliberate  !"* 

No  form  of  argumentation  is  more  frequent  in  the  Gos- 
pel :  "  If  God  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the  field  which  to  day  is, 
and  to-morrow  is  cast  into  the  oven,  shall  he  not  much  more 
clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little  faith  !"  (Matthew,  xxvi.  30.)  "  If 
they  have  called  the  master  of  the  house  Beelzebub,  how 
much  more  shall  they  call  them  of  his  household."  (Mat- 
thew, X.  25.)  "  If  they  have  done  these  things  in  the  greeo 
tree,  what  shall  be  done  in  the  dry?"  (Luke,  xxiii.  31.) 
"  The  time  is  come  that  judgment  must  begin  at  the  house, of 
God  ;  and  if  it  first  begin  at  us,  what  shall  the  end  be  of  them 
that  obey  not  the  gospel  of  God  ?  And  if  the  righteous 
scarcely  be  saved,  where  shall  the  ungodly  and  the  sinner  ap- 
pear ?"  (1  Peter,  iv.  17,  18.)  "  If  the  word  spoken  by  an- 
gels was  stedfast,  and  every  transgression  and  disobedience 
received  a  just  recompense  of  reward,  how  shall  we  escape 
if  we  neglect  so  great  salvation  ;  which  at  the  first  began  to 
be  spoken  of  the  Lord,  and  was  confirmed  unto  us  by  them 
that  heard  him  ?"  (Hebrews,  ii.  2,  3.)  "  For  if  the  blood 
of  bulls  and  goats,  and  the  ashes  of  an  heifer  sprinkling  the 
unclean,  sanctifieth  to  the  purifying  of  the  flesh,  how  much 
more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,   who  through  the  Eternal 

*  Other  examples  :  Sauein,  tome  ii.,  p,  26,  and  tome  i.,  p.  89,  nou- 
velle  edition  ;  Bossuet,  Choix  de  Sermons,  p.  346  ;  Bourdaloue,  Ser- 
mon sur  le  Jugement  dernier,  tome  i.,  p.  13,  col.  2,  edition  Lefevre; 
Massillon,  tome  L,  p.  41'7,  tome  iv.,  p.  255,  tome  xii.,  p.  244,  ancienne 
edition. 


196        DIRECT  AKD  INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION. 

Spirit,  offered  himself  without  spot  to  God,  purge  your 
consciences  from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God." 
(Hebrews,  ix.  13,  14.)  "  See  that  ye  refuse  not  him  that 
speaketh.  For,  if  they  escaped  not  who  refused  him  that 
spake  on  earth,  much  more  shall  not  we  escape,  if  we  turn 
away  from  him  that  speaketh  from  heaven."  (Hebrews,  xii. 
25.)  "  He  that  spared  not  his  own  son,  but  delivered  up 
for  us  all,  how  shall  he  not,  with  him  also,  freely  give  us  all 
things."  (Romans,  viii.  32.) 

5.  Argument  by  Analogy.  "  We  reason  by  analogy," 
says  Condillac,  "  when  we  judge  of  the  relation  which  effects 
should  have  to  one  another  from  that  of  their  causes  ;  or  when 
we  judge  of  the  relation  which  causes  should  have  to  one  an- 
other from  that  of  their  effects."*  Eeasoning  by  analogy  is 
as  good,  as  strict,  as  any  other,  when  the  relation  between 
the  effects  or  causes  is  real ;  when  there  is  identity  and  not  re- 
semblance. The  relation  between  the  two  terms  of  which  a 
metaphor  is  composed,  cannot  be  the  ground  of  a  conclusion. 
It  however  has  currency  both  in  the  world  and  in  the  pul- 
pit,f  and  perhaps  more  in  the  latter  than  in  the  former,  under 
the  usurped  name  of  argument  by  analogy.  It  is  in  itself 
so  difficult  to  establish  real  resemblance  or  essential  identity, 
that  argument  by  analogy  is  almost  always  to  be  accepted 
with  caution ;  but  it  is  not  only  to  be  received  with  caution, 
it  is  wholly  illusory  when  it  rests  on  a  metaphorical  relation, 
which  is  a  relation  only  in  appearance.  The  people  have 
even  already  testified  their  distrust  in  it,  by  the  known  pro- 
verb, "  Comparison  is  not  reason."  And  yet,  how  many 
men,  how  many  preachers  are  there,  who  act  as  if  a  compar- 
ison were  a  reason !  How  often  is  a  fortuitous  coincidence 
given  and  received  as  proof!  Nothing  is  more  to  the  taste 
or  the  fancy  of  orators  who  are  wanting  in   logic  or  con- 

*  Condillac,  Art  de  Raisonner. 

f  Buon  per  la  predica  !     See  page  133. 


DIRECT  AND   INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION.        197 

science ;  it  is  their  chief  resource ;  when  these  outward  re- 
semblances fail  them,  they  are  reduced  to  nothing.  "  If  the 
lightning  had  fallen  upon  low  places,"  says  Pascal,  "  the  poets 
and  those  who  can  reason  only  on  things  of  this  nature,  would 
have  been  destitute  of  proof."*  Nothing  is  better  adapted  to 
deceive  superficial  and  inattentive  minds,  than  those  familiar 
resemblances  which  express  a  salient  relation,  and  conceal  a 
greater  dissimilitude.  It  is  the  favorite  weapon  of  sophistry ; 
it  is  the  snare  most  frequently  set  to  catch  credulity ;  it  is 
the  argument  most  frequently  employed  to  gain  the  assent 
of  ignorant  and  simple  men. 

One  of  two  things  : — either  the  relation  f  is  only  apparent 
— ^in  which  case  it  is  to  be  used  to  illustrate,  not  to  prove — its 
familiar  use  in  the  greater  part  of  the  parables  of  the  gospel, — 
or  the  relation  is  real  between  two  otherwise  different  ob- 
jects, in  which  case  we  reason  conclusively.  We  must  em- 
ploy this  argument.  We  cannot  dispense  with  it.  In  some 
cases  it  is  almost  the  only  one.  The  whole  form  in  which 
our  religion  is  presented,  is  an  analogy.  The  physical  world 
as  a  whole,  is  an  analogy  of  the  moral  world.  Without  the 
aid  of  analogy,  we  can  neither  express  nor  understand  any- 
thing. But  it  is  important  to  be  well  assured  as  to  rela- 
tions.]; 

*  Pascal,  Pensees,  partie  i.,  art.  x.,  §  18. 

f  "  Analogy  ought  to  be  distinguished  from  direct  resemblance, 

with  which  it  is  often  confounded Analogy  being  a  resemblance 

of  ratios,  (Aoyuv  dfioidTTjr^)  that  should  strictly  be  called  an  argu- 
ment from  analogy,  in  which  the  two  things  {viz. :  the  one  from  which 
and  the  other  to  which  we  argue)  are  not  necessarily  themselves 
alike,  but  stand  in  similar  relations  to  some  other  things ;  or,  in 
other  words,  that  the  common  genus  which  they  both  fall  under, 
consists  in  a  relation"  Whatelt's  Rhetoric,  seventh  edition,  Lon- 
don, pp.  90,  91,  92. 

J  *'  In  this  kind  of  argument,  one  error  which  is  very  common, 
and  which  is  to  be  sedulously  avoided,  is  that  of  concluding  the 
things  in  question  to  be  alike,  because  they  are  analogous,  to  resemble 


198        DIRECT  AND   INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION. 

It  is  an  argument  from  analogy,  (combined  with  a  forti- 
ori,) that  we  find  in  those  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  "  What 
man  is  there  of  you,  whom  if  his  son  ask  bread  will  he  give 
him  a  stone '?  or  if  he  ask  a  fish  will  he  give  him  a  serpent  1 
If  ye  then  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your 
children,  how  much  more  shall  your  Heavenly  Father  give 
good  things  to  them  that  ask  Him  f  (Matthews,  vii.  9-1 1.) 
See,  also,  Malachi,  i.  6-8. 

Saint  Paul,  in  our  opinion,  reasons  from  analogy,  when 
after  stating  to  the  Corinthians  this  precept  of  the  old  law, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  which  treadeth  out  the  corn," 
he  adds,  "  Doth  God  take  care  of  oxen  f  (the  absolute  for 
the  relative'?)  "  or  saith  he  it  altogether  for  our  sakesf  (1 
Corinthians,  ix.  9,  10.) 

We  give  another  example  taken  from  Pascal :  "  A  man  in 
a  dungeon  who  does  not  know  whether  sentence  of  death  has 
been  pronounced  against  him,  and  has  but  one  hour  to  learn 
what  is  the  fact,  and  that  hour  sufficient  if  he  ascertains  that 
the  sentence  has  been  passed  to  procure  its  restoration,  acts 
unnaturally,  if  he  spends  this  hour  not  in  informing  himself, 
but  in  sport  and  diversion.  This  is  the  condition  of  the  per- 
sons we  speak  of  with  this  diflference,  that  the  evils  with 
which  they  are  threatened  are  soniething  beyond  the  mere 
loss  of  life  and  the  transient  punishment  which  awaits  the 
prisoner.  Yet  they  run  on  without  thought  to  the  precipice, 
after  covering  their  eyes  to  keep  them  from  seeing  it,  and 
deride  those  who  warn  them  of  their  danger."*     We  distin- 

each  other  in  themselves,  because  there  is  a  resemblance  in  the  rela- 
tions they  bear  to  certain  other  things,  which  is  manifestly  a  ground- 
less inference.  Another  caution — not  to  consider  the  resemblance  or 
analogy  to  extend  further,  {i.  e.)to  more  particulars  than  it  does. 
Wiiately's  Rhetoric,  seventh  edition.'Londou,  pp.  91,  92. 

*  Pascal,  Penaces,  part,  ii.,  arl.ii.  See,  also,  XI<^.  Provi7tcm/e,  p.  263, 
de  r  edition  de  Didot,  1822 ;  Sauuin,  tome  i.,  pages  56  and  90,  uou- 
felle  edition;  Massillon,  tome  xii.,  p.  388,  edition  Mequignon. 


DIEECT   AND   INDIEECT    ARGUMENTATION.  199 

guish,  in  this  example,  the  true  elements  of  identity  and  re- 
semblance. 

6.  In  conclusion,  let  us  speak  of  the  argument  which  may 
be  called  the  argument  from  supposition  or  construction^  an- 
other form  of  indirect  argumentation.  We  create,  with  the 
hearer's  consent,  a  fact,  apart  from  real  and  known  facts ;  we 
make  what  is  called  in  geometry,  a  construction  ;  we  are  as- 
sisted by  this  dotted  line,  which  wx  instantly  erase,  in  testing 
the  regularity  of  the  figure  which  we  first  traced.  We  have 
to  show  that  there  is  the  same  relation  between  the  supposed 
fact  and  the  conclusion  we  draw  from  it,  that  there  is  be- 
tween the  premises  of  the  reasoning  which  w^e  institute  and 
the  conclusions  from  these  premises.  The  conclusion  which 
we  accept  involves  that  which  we  reject. 

There  is  always  an  identical  element,  a  common  point  be- 
tween the  supposed  fact  and  the  real  fact.  If  the  identity  is 
not  perfect,  the  argumeiit  amounts  to  nothing. 

There  are  fine  examples  of  this  in  Cicero  : 

"  Wherefore,  if  Milo,  holding  the  bloody  dagger  in  his 
hand,  had  cried  aloud,  citizens  I  beseech  you,  draw  near  and 
attend :  I  have  killed  Publius  Clodius  :  with  this  right  hand, 
with  this  dagger,  I  have  saved  your  lives  from  that  fury, 
which  no  laws,  no  government  could  restrain :  to  me  alone  it 
is  owing,  that  justice,  equity,  laws,  liberty,  modesty,  and  de- 
cency have  yet  a  being  in  Rome  ;  could  there  be  any  room 
for  Milo  to  fear  how  his  country  would  take  it  ?  Who  is 
there  now  that  does  not  approve  and  applaud  it  1  Where  is 
the  man  that  does  not  think  and  declare  it  as  his  opinion, 
that  Milo  has  done  the  greatest  possible  service  to  his  coun- 
try ;  that  he  has  spread  joy  among  the  inhabitants  of  Rome, 
of  all  Italy,  and  the  whole  world ;  I  cannot  indeed  determine 
how  high  the  transports  of  the  Roman  people  may  have  risen 
in  former  times ;  this  present  age  however,  has  been  witness 


200  DIRECT  AND  INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION". 

to  many  signal  victories  of  the  bravest  generals ;  but  none 
of  them  ever  occasioned  such  real  and  lasting  joy."* 

"  Form  now  in  your  minds,  (for  our  thoughts  are  free,) 
form,  I  say,  in  your  minds  the  picture  of  what  I  shall  now 
describe.  Suppose  I  could  persuade  you  to  acquit  Milo,  on 
condition  that  Clodius  should  revive.  Why  do  your  counte- 
nances betray  those  marks  of  fear  ?  How  would  he  afiect 
you  when  living,  if  the  bare  imagination  of  him,  though  he  is 
dead,  so  powerfully  strikes  you  ?  What  if  Pompey  himself, 
a  man  possessed  of  that  merit  and  fortune  which  enables 
him  to  effect  what  no  one  besides  him  can  ;  if  he,  I  say,  had 
it  in  his  power  either  to  appoint  Clodius's  death  to  be  in- 
quired into,  or  to  raise  him  from  the  dead,  which  do  you 
think  he  would  choose  ^  Though  from  a  principle  of  friend- 
ship he  might  be  inclined  to  raise  him  from  the  dead,  yet  a 
regard  to  his  country  would  prevent  him.  You,  therefore, 
sit  as  the  avengers  of  that  man's  death,  whom  you  would  not 
recall  to  life  if  you  were  able  ;  and  inquiry  is  made  into  his 
death  by  a  law  which  would  not  have  passed  if  it  could  have 
brought  him  to  life."  f 

We  find  the  same  form  of  reasoning  in  this  passage  from 

Voltaire : 

Cassios.:}: 
Ecoute :  tu  connais  avec  quelle  furie 
Jadis  Catilina  mena^a  sa  patrie  ? 

*  GiCEUo,  pro  Milone,  (Duncan's  translation.) 
f  Cicero,  pro  3f Hone,  (Duncan's  translation.), 
X  "  Cassius. 

•    •    Brutus  hear  me  :  thou  know'st  that  erst 

The  monster  Catiline  with  desperate  rage 

His  country's  ruin  sought. 

Brutus. 
I  do. 

Cassius. 
If,  on  the  day  by  him  assigned  to  give 
The  mortal  blow  to  liberty,  the  traitor, 


DIRECT  AND   INDIRECT  ARGUMENTATION.  201 

Betjtus. 
Oui. 

Cassius. 
Si,  le  meme  jour  que  ee  grand  criminel 
Dut  a  la  liberte  porter  le  coup  mortel ; 
Si  lorsque  le  Senat  eut  condamne  ee  traitre, 
Catilina  pour  fils  t'eut  voulu  reconnaitre, 
Entre  ce  monstre  et  nous  force  de  decider, 
Parle :  qu'aurais-tu  fait  ? 

Brutus. 
Peux-tu  le  demander  ? 
Penses-tu  qu'un  instant  ma  vertu  dementie 
Eut  mis  dans  la  balance  un  homme  et  la  patrie 

Cassius. 
Brutus  par  ce  seul  mot  ton  devoir  est  dicte.* 

The  supposition  or  construction,  which  we  here  present  as 
a  means  of  argumentation,  may  become,  also,  an  oratorical 
figure  and  one  of  the  greatest  boldness. f 


By  the  Senate  doomed  to  death — if  he 
Thee  as  his  son  had  wished  to  recognize, 
Forced  to  decide  'twixt  him  and  us — 
Say,  what  would'st  thou  have  done  ? 

Brutus. 
How  can'st  thou  ask  ?  Dost  thou  suppose 
That  for  an  instant  to  my  virtue  false, 
I  could  in  balance  put  my  country  and  a  man  ? 

Cassius. 
That  one  word,  Brutus,  points  thee  to  thy  duty." — ^Tr. 

*  Voltaire,  La  mort  de  Cesar,  acte  iii.,  scene  ii.  See,  also,  Saurhj, 
mr  le  prix  de  Vame,  tome  ii.,  p.  383,  nouvelle  edition  ;  Bourdalouic, 
mr  la  Nativity  de  Jesus  Christ,  tome  i.,  p.  124,  col.  1,  edition  Lefevre  ; 
Manuel,  sur  la  Resurrection  du  fils  de  la  veuve,  premier  recueil,  p.  22, 
et  sur  Lydie,  deuxieme  recueil,  p.  144. 

f  See  Massillon,  Careme,  sur  le  petit  nombre  des  elus  ;  and  I'abbe 
PouLLE,  sermon  sur  VAmnbne,  tome  i.,  p.  159. 


202  DIVEES  FORMS  OF  ARGUMENTATIQIT. 

We  have  enumerated  the  principal,  if  not  all  the  forms  in 
which  argumentation  may  be  clothed.  Experience  and  au- 
thority apart,  which  in  certain  cases  dispense  with  argumen- 
tation or  are  an  addition  or  a  prelude  to  it,  there  are  in  argu- 
mentation, properly  so  called,  proof  and  refutation,  in  both, 
simple  analytic  and  synthetic  argument,  (too  much  of  finesse 
in  this  last,)  and  combined  and  enhanced  argument,  which 
has  place  when  we  introduce  a  personal  element,  or  when  not 
content  with  convincing  our  adversary,  we  force  him  into 
absurdity  or  odium  ;  and,  in  each  of  these  kinds,  we  have  to 
choose  between  the  direct  form,  and  indirect  means.  These 
latter  are  numerous. 

We  may  proceed  in  the  way  of  subtraction,  of  refutation, 
of  contrast,  of  comparison,  of  analogy,  of  supposition,  of 
progression,  and  each  of  these  forms  makes  use  of  some  fact, 
taken  from  without  the  sphere  of  the  proper  matter  of 
the  reasoning,  the  subject  of  the  argumentation.  We  may 
use,  by  turns,  each  of  these  weapons,  which  taken  together 
form  the  complete  armor,  the  panoply  of  the  orator ;  but  we 
may  also  accumulate  them  on  the  same  subject.  It  is  im- 
portant to  make  the  attack  on  many  sides,  and  with  many 
different  weapons, 

"  Le  fer,  I'onde,  le  feu,  lui  declarent  la  guerre" 

for  the  purpose  of  reaching  different  classes  of  the  auditory, 
and  the  different  parts  of  the  intellectual  man,  and  of  show- 
ing how  great  are  the  resources  of  the  truth. 

There  is  sometimes  an  advantage  in  the  assemblage  of 
liiany  different  arguments.*  Only  let  us  not  imagine  that 
number  may  be  a  substitute  for  quality.  Twenty  half-proofs 
do  not  make  ten  proofs.  Taken  together,  they  are  only  one 
half-proof  One  false  and  questionable  reason  perhaps  does 
more  harm  than  two  decisive  proofs  do  good.     The  remark 

*  See  Massiilon,  tome  iv.,  pages  24,  25,  edition  Mequignon. 


MOTIVES.  203 

of  Quintilian :  Firmissimis  argumentorum  singulis  instan- 
dum  ;  infirmiora  congreganda  sunt*  is  altogether  in  the  in- 
sincere spirit  of  the  rhetoric  of  the  ancients,  (Aruspices.) 

Let  us  not  confound  half-proofs,  that  is  to  say  bad  proofs, 
with  2)robable  evidence.  When  we  have  furnished  on  a  ques- 
tion nothing  besides  probabilities,  we  have  done  something ; 
we  repress,  by  these  means,  the  temerity  of  contradiction. 
When  we  have  proofs  to  advance,  probabilities  or  presump- 
tions happily  prepare  the  way  for  them  ;  and  often  by  a  kind 
of  retroactive  effect,  proof  when  administered,  gives  to  pre- 
sumptions a  force  which  they  had  not  seemed  to  possess. f 

/ 
2.  Motives.  ' 

The  last  end  of  argumentation  is  action,  or  the  determina- 
tion of  the  will.  Now  the  will  is  determined  only  by  affec- 
tion. "  All  our  reasoning,"  says  Pascal,  "  must  resolve  it- 
self into  yielding  to  sentiment."];  We  will  only  what  we 
love ;  or,  at  least,  we  will  only  because  we  love. 

Always,  when  the  will  is  to  be  determined,  one  of  two 
things  is  necessary,  either  we  must  address  an  affection  al- 
ready existing,  make  an  appeal  to  it,  excite  it  by  presenting 
objects  to  it  by  which  it  may  be  nourished,  or  create  affec- 
tions which  have  a  just  relation  to  the  end  we  have  in  view. 

But  the  second  case  never  has  place,  at  least  in  an  absolute 
sense.  We  may  awaken  affections ;  we  do  not  create  them. 
I  say  this  in  reference  to  good  as  well  as  to  evil.  Propen- 
sion,§  for  this  name  suits  better  than  affection  ;  propension  or 

*  "  If  our  proofs  be  strong,  let  them  be  proposed  and  urged  sepa- 
rately ;  if  weak,  it  will  be  best  to  collect  them  into  a  body." — Quin- 
tilian, lib.  v.,  cap.  xii. 

f  See  Saurin,  tome  iii.,  p.  265,  nouvelle  edition.  A  fine  example 
of  compressed  and  cogent  reasoning  may  be  found  in  Bordaloue's 
sermon,  sur  le  Jugement  dernier. 

\  Pascal,  Pensees,  partie  i.,  art.  x,,  §  4. 

§  Or  inclination,  or  susceptibility.  The  French  is  Vattrait,  attraction, 
by  metonomy,  the  condition,  the  possibility  of  being  attracted. — Tr. 


204  MOTIVES. 

a  sense  of  need  exists ;  if  it  did  not  exist,  in  vain  should 
we  evoke  it.  It  is  a  germ  perhaps  buried,  but  not  dead. 
A  reprobate  is  often  concealed  in  an  honest  man ;  and  this 
man  often  needs  only  circumstances  to  make  him  a  felon. 
More  than  circumstances  are  necessary  to  make  a  natural 
man  a  saint.  A  principle  of  renovation,  out  of  and  above 
the  order  of  nature,  is  indispensable.  But  this  extraordinary 
principle  of  renovation  must  have  a  ground.  There  must  be  a 
soil  in  the  human  soul  to  receive  it.  If  the  death  of  which 
Saint  Paul  speaks  (Ephesians,  ii.  1,  5)  were  the  annihilation 
of  all  the  sentiments  and  ideas  which  have  relation  to  good, 
it  must  be  as  to  man  an  everlasting  fact.  The  germ  is  over- 
borne, not  annihilated. 

In  all  cases,  then,  we  must  present  to  the  soul  what  is  suited 
to  attract  it,  or,  as  we  say,  touch  it.  So  long  as  you  have 
only  made  proof,  so  long  as  your  proof  has  only  reached  the 
intellect  of  man,  the  hearer  has  not  been  touched  ;  he  remains 
intact. 

Instead  of  touching  we  also  say  moving^  setting  in  motion. 
The  simple  conviction  of  the  mind  sets  nothing  into  motion. 
The  soul  remains  unmoved.  The  understanding,  it  is  true, 
is  the  subject  of  an  impression,  has  received  an  impress ;  but 
the  man,  taken  as  a  whole,  remains  where  he  was ;  the  point 
aimed  at,  however,  was  to  make  him  change  his  place.  What- 
ever is  suited  to  make  him,  in  this  sense,  change  his  place,  is 
called  a  motive. 

As  man  follows  his  inclination  {trahitsua  quemqiie  cupido)* 
and  as  in  our  present  state,  sensible  and  passing  things  have 
very  vivid  attractions  for  us,  while  we  are  asleep  in  respect 
to  the  things  of  the  unseen  state,  the  result  has  been,  the  re- 
sult always  will  be,  that  the  will  of  man  is  determined  by 
the  attractiveness  of  sensible  things  and  in  the  direction  of 

*  "  Every  man  is  drawn  of  his  own  desire."  (Epistle  of  St.  James, 
chapter  i.  14.) 


ALL   MOTIVES  REDUCED   TO   TWO.  205 

those  things.  Man,  of  course,  is  no  longer  free,  not  however 
because  he  feels  an  attraction,  since,  assuredly  he  must  needs 
feel  one,  but  because  that  which  he  feels  is  from  below  not 
from  above,  because  he  is  attracted  not  in  the  properties  of 
his  better  but  of  his  inferior  nature,  because  he  obeys  an  at- 
traction which  is  against  the  promptings  of  his  law,  which  is 
God.     Now,  conformity  to  the  law,  is  to  him  liberty. 

The  liberty  of  man,  who  is  not  an  absolute  being,  consists 
not  in  acting  without  motives,  but  in  acting  from  good 
motives.  We  will  present  to  him  only  good  ones,  but  then 
we  will  present  them. 

It  is  a  remarkable  thing,  which  shows  that  all  light  is  not 
quenched  in  man,  that  though  he  is  determined  by  bad  mo- 
tives, he  would  fain  disguise  them  to  himself.  He  does  not,  at 
least,  urge  them  upon  others,  above  all  he  does  not  dare  to  pro- 
pose evil  explicitly  to  assembled  men,  or,  to  speak  more  cor- 
rectly, to  present  as  a  motive  the  pure  and  simple  gratification 
of  lust.  Eloquence  would  not  be  eloquence,  if  it  did  not  pre- 
tend at  least  to  be  in  favor  of  good,  if  it  did  not  give  the  ap- 
pearance of  good  to  the  evil  which  it  recommends.  It  is  of 
course  indissolubly  connected  with  the  idea  of  good.  Elo- 
quence is  detached  from  its  only  roots,  when  it  separates  itself 
from  justice  and  truth.  Marat,  himself,  had  to  pretend  that  he 
was  defending  principle  and  not  interest.  Evil  is  as  an  azote 
in  which  eloquence  expires ;  it  expires,  likewise,  in  what  may 
be  termed  in  some  sense  the  too  pure  or  too  subtile  air  of 
speculation. 

Motive^  attraction,  affection,  the  name  is  of  small  import- 
ance— this  is  indispensable  to  the  determination  of  the  will, 
and  consequently  it  is  essential  to  eloquence. 

Let  us  then  see  what  points  we  may  touch ;  we  shall  see 
hereafter  how  we  should  touch  them.  All  the  motives  that 
we  can  use  as  levers  may  be  reduced  to  these  two  :   Goodness 


206  MOTIVE   FROM   GOODNESS. 

and  happiness.  Our  reasons  will  be  given  hereafter  for  not 
excluding  the  second  motive. 

In  the  first  motive  I  distinguish  goodness  as  such,  from  the 
author  of  'goodness  or  of  the  law.  Goodness  corresponds  to 
our  nature  under  these  different  aspects ;  it  is  its  need,  which,  in 
the  absence  of  certain  conditions,  has  insufficient  attraction  for 
it ;  in  the  presence  of  these  conditions  its  attraction  is  all- 
powerful.  We  cannot,  however,  distinguish  and  separate, 
absolutely,  the  author  of  the  law  from  the  law  itself.  The 
law  cannot  be  sincerely,  fully  loved  by  one  who  does  not  love 
its  author.  The  author  of  the  law  is  also  its  object ;  he  is, 
we  may  say,  the  law  itself;  he  is  goodness.  Duty,  proper- 
ly, has  respect  to  God.  The  love  of  God  is  moral  truth  it- 
self, and  the  very  principle  of  life ;  and  the  whole  gospel  is 
calculated  to  render  us  susceptible  of  this  sentiment.  Grat- 
itude to  God  is  the  substance,  the  summary  of  the  gospel. 
"  Knowest  thou  not  that  the  goodness  of  God  leadeth  thee  to 
repentance  V  (Romans,  ii.  4.)  We  would  not  however  deny 
or  let  it  be  forgotten,  that  goodness  has  its  reasons  in  itself, 
and,  though  in  the  absence  of  the  love  of  God  it  is  in  a  state 
of  decay,  incomplete,  and  to  a  certain  extent  irrational,  it  is 
not,  nevertheless,  chimerical  and  without  a  basis,  in  that  iso- 
lation. 

The  sentiment  of  goodness  to  which  we  appeal  or  which 
we  would  excite,  has  two  forms,  as  an  axis  has  two  poles. 
We  distinguish  as  two  correlates,  sympathy  and  antipathy, 
love  and  hatred  ;  for  to  every  love  a  hatred  corresponds ;  to 
the  love  of  a  thing  the  hatred  of  its  contrary ;  to  the  love  of 
goodness,  the  hatred  of  evil. 

We  have  here  two  sources  or  two  characteristics  of  elo- 
quence. Although  we  cannot  absolutely  suppose  one  of 
these  sentiments  without  the  other,  any  more  than  the  posi- 
tive pole  without  the  negative,  one  of  them  may  have  the 
prcdommance  with  one  man,  or  on  one  occasion,  the  other 


MOTIVE  FKOM  HAPPINESS.  207 

with  another  man,  or  on  another  occasion.  The  bitter  elo- 
quence and  chagrin  of  Rousseau  answers  to  one  of  these  senti- 
ments, the  happy  and  triumphal  eloquence  of  Bossuet, 
rather  answers  to  the  other.  Indignation  is  an  ingredient  of 
eloquence  with  which  the  pulpit  cannot  dispense.  To  be 
good  to  the  wicked  is  to  be  wicked.  "  Lord,  do  I  not  hate 
them  that  hate  thee."  (Psalm  cxxxiv.  21.)  Still,  it  would 
be  sad  to  have  no  love  for  goodness  except  hatred  of  evil. 
Indignation  then  must  not  be  permitted  to  occupy  the  whole 
heart ;  how  readily  would  it  turn  into  wrath  !  Now,  neither 
in  the  pulpit,  nor  elsewhere,  does  "  the  wrath  of  man  work 
the  righteousness  of  God."  (James,  i.  20.) 

I  mentioned  first  goodness  or  duty  ;  afterwards  I  mentioned 
happiness. 

This  last  motive  may  be  presented  by  the  preacher. 

1.  To  some  souls  access  is  easy  only  on  this  side,  and  it  is 
the  side  on  which  access  to  all  is  the  easiest. 

2.  It  is  essential  to  human  nature,  it  is  a  constituent  part 
of  it ;  it  is  not  in  itself  evil ;  if  it  is  the  starting  point  of 
selfishness,  it  is  also  the  condition  of  devotion  and  of  sacri- 
fice ;  it  occupies  a  place  amongst  our  most  disinterested  and 
most  generous  sentiments. 

3.  It  abounds  in  that  revelation  in  behalf  of  which  we 
speak.  "  I  have  set  before  you  life  and  death,  blessing  and 
cursing,  therefore  choose  life,  that  both  thou  and  thy  seed 
may  live."  (Deuteronomy,  xxx.  19.)  "For  why  will  ye 
die,  O  house  of  Israel."  (Ezekiel,  xviii.  31.)  The  first  word 
in  the  public  preaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  is  the  word  Blessed. 
(Matthew,  v.  3.)  We  may  say  that  it  is  the  first  word  of 
religion,  which  is  a  doctrine  of  liappiness  or  salvation,  as  well 
as  of  perfection,  and  of  which  it  is  the  peculiarity,  that  it 
identifies  happiness  with  perfection.  In  this  respect,  the  two 
motives  which  we  have  distinguished  are  but  one. 

Happiness  then,  in  general,  may  be  presented  as  a  motive. 


208  MOTIVE  FEOM  HAPPINESS. 

But  on  this  point  there  are  rules  not  to  be  disregarded  by  a 
Christian  preacher. 

1.  He  should  give  the  preference  in  his  addresses  to  our 
higher  interests,*  and  have  a  subsidiary  regard  to  the  others. 
I  call  those  high  which  are  invisible,  which  are  eternal.  "  If 
we  were  called,"  said  a  preacher,  "  to  occupy  ourselves  with 
your  temporal  interests,!  we  would  show  you  the  beneficent 
character  of  the  institution  of  Sunday.  |" 

2.  When  he  presents  motives  of  a  less  elevated  order,  of 
temporal  interest,  he  should  do  this  from  the  most  elevated 
point  of  view,  less  as  motives  than  as  indications  of  the  good 
or  evil  of  an  action.  § 

3.  The  Christian  should  employ  the  motive  of  interest, 
only  according  to  its  nature.  Interest  is  a  motive,  not  an  ar- 
gument ;  it  bears  upon  action,  not  upon  belief  We  shall 
here  cite  Pascal :  "  I  blame  them  for  having  made  not 
this  choice,  but  any  choice.  It  is  equally  wrong  to  take  cross 
or  pile ;  the  true  way  is  not  to  wager.  Nay,  but  you  must 
wager ;  you  are  committed,  and  not  to  wager  that  God  is,  is 
wagering  that  he  is  not.  Which  do  you  choose  1  Let  us  see 
that  in  which  you  are  least  interested,  etc. ;"  and  farther  on, 
"  What  harm  will  befall  you  if  you  take  this  side  ?  You  will 
become  faithful,  honest,  humble,  thankful,  kind,  sincere,  true. 
You  will  not,  it  is  true,  be  given  up  to  impure  pleasure,  to 

*  See  Massillon,  JPetit  Careme,  Sermon  sur  VHumanite  des  grands 
envers  le  peuple. 

\  We  are  no  more  called  to  do  this,  than  was  Jesus  Christ  to  inter- 
fere as  a  jndge  in  the  disputes  of  his  countrymen,     (Luke,  xii.  14.) 

\  See  Massillon,  Petit  Careme  Sermon  sur  le  Respect  die  a  la  relig- 
ion.   "  Mais  sire,  quand  ces  motifs,  etc." 

§  See  the  sermon  of  Bourdaloue  on  Impurity,  tome  i.,  p.  287,  col. 
1,  edition  Lefcvre:  "En  eflfet  s'il  cesse,  etc."  All  the  first  part  of 
this  discourse  realizes  our  idea  by  presenting  impiirity,  not  yet  as  a 
principle  of  reprobation,  (that  is  the  subject  of  the  second  part,) 
but  as  a  sign  of  ropi'obation* 


MOTIVE  FROM  HAPPINESS.  209 

ambition,  to  luxury.  But  will  you  have  nothing  in  their 
place  ?  I  affirm  that  you  will  be  a  gainer  even  in  this  life, 
and  that  every  step  you  shall  take  in  this  road,  you  will 
see  so  much  of  the  certainty  of  gain,  and  so  much  of  the 
nothingness  of  what  you  lose,  that  you  will  confess,  at  last, 
that  you  have  wagered  for  what  is  certain  and  infinite,  and 
that  to  obtain  it  you  have  given  nothing."* 

Let  us  also  hear  La  Bruyere :  "  Religion  is  true,  or  it  is 
false;  if  it  is  only  a  vain  fiction,  then,  if  you  please,  the  good 
man,  the  Carthusian  friar  or  solitary,  has  lost  sixty  years ; 
he  runs  no  other  risk.  But  if  it  is  founded  in  truth  itself, 
then  to  the  bad  man  how  dreadful  the  misery  !  The  idea  of 
the  miseries  he  prepares  for  himself,  overwhelms  my  imagina- 
tion ;  thought  is  too  weak  to  conceive,  words  too  empty  to  ex- 
press them.  Even  supposing  that  the  world  were  less  assured 
than  it  is,  as  to  the  truth  of  religion,  there  would  be  no  bet- 
ter part  for  man  than  virtue,"f  or  rather,  "  than  to  live  as  if 
religion  were  true."     Pascal  alone  is  complete. 

4.  Combine  hope  and  fear ;  do  not  appeal  to  one  at  the 
expense  of  the  other.  These  are  the  two  poles  of  interest, 
as  love  and  hatred  are  the  two  poles  of  moral  affection.  We 
may  not  dispense  with  the  influence  of  fear,  (let  us  think  of 
the  terrible  condition  of  a  man  who  fears  no  longer ;)  but 
we  must  not  let  it  be  exclusive ;  even  as  we  must  not  dis- 
pense with  the  influence  of  hatred,  though  not  to  the  expense 
of  love.  Whatever  practical  advantage  fear  may  have  over 
hope,  (fear  acts  more  immediately  and  universally,)  hope  is 
still  its  superior ;  it  is  a  principle  of  action  and  development ; 
it  dilates  the  soul,  which  fear  rather  contracts.  The  gospel  has 
not  said  "  Now  abideth  these  three,  faith,  /ear,  and  charity," 

*  Pascal,  Pensees,  pavtie  ii.,  art.  iii.,  §  5. 

•j-  La  Bruyere  CaracUres,  chap,  xvi.,  Des  esprits  forts.  See,  also, 
Massillon,  sermon  sur  la  Verite  d'un  avenir,  tome  i.,  p.  171,  edition 
Lefevre. 


210  MOTIVE   FROM   HAPPINESS. 

(see  1  Corinthians,  xiii.  13.)  Fear  is  not  a  virtue,  since  it  is 
the  office  of  perfect  love  to  cast  it  out,  (1  John,  iv.  18.) 
We  may  say  that  all  our  courage  is  fear,  but  this  is  not  true 
of  Christian  courage ;  that  is  a  hope. 

When  we  employ  fear,  we  must  give  it  as  moral  and  as 
generous  a  character  as  we  can.  But  we  are  much  mistaken 
in  regard  to  human  nature,  when  we  employ  terror  under  the 
name  of  fear.  There  is  nothing  moral,  nothing  noble  in  ter- 
ror, it  is  a  sentiment  wholly  selfish.  It  is  not  the  same  with 
fear.  The  evils  which  we  fear  may  be  of  such  a  nature,  that 
the  impression  we  feel  at  the  thought  of  them  is  rather 
adapted  to  ennoble  than  debase  the  soul.  The  fear  which  the 
preacher  should  excite  is  that  of  hell  or  the  second  death. 
But  under  the  name  of  hell,  may  we  not  represent  a  different 
thing  from  those  material  sufferings,  those  terrible,  but  yet 
vulgar  sufferings — the  presentiment  of  eternal  separation 
fi'om  God  ?  We  frighten  our  hearers  with  this  mysterious 
future ;  but  may  we  not  bring  the  perspective  nearer,  and 
make  them  see  and  taste  hell  in  the  present  ?  This  hell,  we 
carry  it  in  us,  and  find  it  there.  With  the  judgments  of  God, 
we  must  denounce  on  ourselves  our  own  judgments.  God 
may  pardon  us  ;  we  believe  this,  on  the  faith  of  the  gospel : 
otherwise  we  could  not  believe  it,  for  our  conscience  is  more 
implacable  than  God ;  it  cannot  pardon  us.  Yes,  although 
the  eyes  of  God  are  pure,  and  our  own  impure,  yet  the  pardon 
which  it  is  most  difficult  to  obtain,  is  our  own,  and  this  to 
many  is  a  source  of  unbelief  Great  orators  have  shown  us 
how  elevation  may  belong  to  the  element  of  fear  ; — the  fear 
of  being  separated  from  God.  But  so  long  as  condemnation 
proclaimed  from  without  does  not  resound  within,  so  long  as 
conscience  does  not  sanction  it,  we  are  not  in  the  condition 
which  the  gospel  makes  necessary  to  the  reception  -of  grace. 
We  must  combine  fear  with  sentiments  which  expand  and 
melt  the  soul.     See  how  Bossuet  could  awaken  in  the  heart 


MOTIVE   FKOM   HAPPINESS.  211 

at  the  same  time  terror  and  tenderness,  in  his  sermon  on 
final  impenitence. 

"  Ah  !  God  is  just  and  equitable,  unmerciful  man  of  wealth, 
you  yourself  shall  come  to  days  of  want  and  distress. 
Think  not  that  I  threaten  you  with  a  change  of  your  fortune ; 
events  are  uncertain,  but  what  I  wish  to  say  is  not  a  matter  of 
doubt.  It  will  come  at  the  appointed  day,  that  last  sickness, 
in  which,  among  a  great  multitude  of  friends,  of  physicians, 
of  servants,  you  will  remain  without  succor,  more  deserted, 
more  abandoned,  than  the  poor  man  who  is  dying  on  the 
straw,  and  who  has  not  a  burial  garment  ;  for  in  that  fatal 
sickness  what  will  these  friends  avail  you  but  to  afflict  you 
by  their  presence  ;  these  physicians,  but  to  torment  you  ; 
these  servants,  but  to  run  about  your  mansion  in  a  fruitless 
hurry.  You  have  need  of  other  friends,  other  servants  ; 
the  poor  persons  whom  you  have  despised  are  the  only  ones 
who  can  succor  you.  Why  have  you  not  thought  in  good 
season  of  making  friends  to  yourselves,  who  would  now 
stretch  out  their  arms  to  you  to  receive  you  into  everlasting 
habitations.  Ah  !  if  you  had  assuaged  their  sorrows,  if  you 
had  pitied  them  in  their  despair,  if  you  had  but  hearkened  to 
their  complaints,  your  compassions  would  be  your  intercessors 
with  God ;  the  blessings  they  would  have  given  you  when 
you  comforted  them  in  their  affliction  would  now  shed  on 
you  a  refreshing  dew  ;  the  covering  you  would  have  given 
them,  as  the  holy  prophet  says,  (Job,  xxxi.  20,)  their  refresh- 
ed bowels,  their  satisfied  hunger,  would  bless  you,  their 
holy  angels,  as  devoted  friends,  would  keep  watch  around 
your  bed,  and  night  and  day  these  spiritual  physicians  would 
hold  consultation  to  find  remedies  for  you.  But  you  have  turned 
away  their  heart  from  you,  and  the  prophet  Jeremiah  presents 
them  to  me  as  themselves  condemning  you  without  taercy. 

"  Here,  Sirs,  is  a  great  sight.  Come  see  the  holy  angels  in 
the  death-chamber  of  a  wicked  rich  man.     While  the  phy- 


212  MOTIVE  FEOM  HAPPINESS. 

sicians  consult  together  on  the  state  of  his  malady,  and  his 
trembling  household  await  the  result  of  the  conference,  these 
invisible  physicians  are  consulting  about  a  far  worse  evil :  '  We 
would  have  healed  Babylon,  but  she  is  not  healed,''  (Jeremiah, 
li.  9.)  We  have  even  bestowed  diligent  attention  on  this 
cruel  rich  man  ;  what  mollifying  ointments,  what  softening 
fomentations  have  we  applied  to  this  heart,  but  it  is  not 
softened,  its  hardness  has  not  been  subdued,  all  has  gone 
contrary  to  our  thoughts,  and  our  remedies  have  only  made 
the  sick  man  worse.  '  Let  us  leave  him,  they  say,  and  let  us  go 
every  one  into  his  own  country.''  (Jeremiah,  li.  9.)  See  ye 
not  on  his  forehead  the  seal  of  reprobation  1  The  hardness 
of  his  heart  has  hardened  against  him  the  heart  of  God  ;  the 
poor  have  laid  their  charge  against  him  before  the  divine  tri- 
bunal ;  proofs  against  him  have  been  instituted  in  heaven,  and 
though  he  should  give  away  at  his  death,  all  the  wealth  he 
can  no  longer  keep,  heaven  is  iron  to  his  prayers,  and  there 
is  mercy  for  him  no  longer.  '  For  his  judgment  reacheth  unto 
heaven,  and  is  lifted  up  even  to  the  skies. ^  (Jeremiah,  li.  9.) 
Christians,  think  whether  you  would  like  to  die  thus  forsaken, 
and  if  you  are  horrified  by  the  prospect,  hear  the  cries  of 
mercy  that  you  may  not  hear  the  cries  of  reproach,  which  the 
poor  will  raise  against  you."  * 

These  are  the  only  springs  of  motion  which  the  pulpit  may 
touch,  and  the  use  of  the  second  we  have  endeavored  to 
restrict.  We  do  not,  with  the  ancient  rhetoricians,  give 
free  course  to  all  the  passions  :  We  do  not  say  with  Quin- 
tilian,  Haec  pars  {nudog)  circa  iram,  odium,  metum,  invidiam, 
miserationem,  fere  tota  versatur  ;  f  but  in  connexion  with  the 
generous  motives  of  which  we  have  authorized  the  use,  we 

*Bos8UET,  2e  Sermon  pour  lejcudi  de  la,  2e  semaine  du  Gar  tine. 

\  QuiNTiLiAN,  lib.  vi.,  ch.  ii.  "This  part,  the  pathetic,  is  almost 
wholly  taken  up  with  the  passions  of  anger,  hatred,  fear,  envy,  pity." 
—Tr 


SELF-LOVE. — RIDICULE.  213 

indicate  certain  moral  elements  which  enter  into  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  grand  motives  above  mentioned,  or  per- 
haps into  both  at  the  same  time.  We  name  them  apart, 
because,  each  of  them  has  something  special,  sui  generis^ 
and  because  it  is  not  easy  to  say,  at  least  with  respect  to 
some  of  them,  to  which  of  these  principles  they  relate. 

Self-love.  We  cannot  determine  ourselves  to  truth  or  duty, 
by  self-love  or  vanity ;  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  that 
truth  is  conformed  and  that  error  is  contrary  to  the  dignity 
of  human  nature.  Here,  in  opposition  to  what  we  have  said 
above  as  to  the  preference  to  be  given  to  the  positive  over 
the  negative,  it  is  the  negative  that  we  prefer ;  we  prefer  ex- 
citing ourselves  to  goodness  by  the  disgrace  of  being  desti- 
tute of  it  rather  than  by  the  honor  of  practising  it.  When 
a  preacher  (and  the  most  of  christians  may  do  this)  shows  how 
disgraceful  is  such  an  action,  such  conduct,  such  an  opinion, 
what  else  does  he  but  rely  on  the  necessity  of  our  esteeming 
or  at  least  of  our  not  despising  ourselves.*  It  is  true  that 
the  apostles  scarcely  appeal  to  the  sentiment  of  human  or 
personal  dignity  even  under  this  form.  It  is  not  so  much 
ourselves  that  they  urge  us  to  respect  as  God  in  us :  "  Your 
body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  spirit,"  says  St.  Paul.  (1 
Corinthians,  vi.  19.) 

Ridicule.  The  difficulty  is  not  to  excite  but  to  avoid  ex- 
citing it,  for  wherever  we  find  the  unreasonable,  there  inva- 
riably ridicule  may  have  place.  "  In  truth,"  says  Pascal,  "  it  is 
honorable  to  religion  to  have  such  unreasonable  men  for  its 
enemies."!  "  We  must  admit,"  says  Boileau,  "  that  God  has 
insensate  enemies."  But  we  must  not  excite  ridicule  ;  for  it  is 
an  impression  which  shuts  the  soul  to  religious  emotions. 

*  See  Massillon,  sermon  sur  la  verite  d'un  avenir,  tome  i.,  p.  1*70, 
edition  Lefevre,  and  tome  ii.,  p.  239,  edition  Mequignon.  "  Mais  je 
vais  encore  plus  loin,  etc." 

f  Pascal,  Pensees,  partie  ii.,  art.  ii. 


214  SENSE  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

We  must  beware  of  erecting  the  fear  of  ridicule  into  a  mo- 
tive ;  for  men,  under  the  power  of  it,  will  no  longer  avoid 
evil  as  evil,  but  as  ridicule ;  they  will  no  more  repent  of  sin 
although  sin  is  still  a  stupidity.  We  must  guard  against  it, 
for  ridicule  attaches  itself  almost  as  easily  to  good  as  to  evil. 
It  is  respect  for  man,  nothing  else,  that  ridicule  invokes ! 

Moreover,  though  ridicule  may  make  us  avoid  an  action, 
it  does  not  amend  the  soul.  This  shows  that  the  pretence  of 
correcting  morals  (castigare  mores)  by  comedy  is  vain.  If 
the  use  of  ridicule  may  be  admitted  in  familiar  conversation 
or  in  a  book,  it  is  out  of  place  in  an  assembly,  when  grave 
subjects  are  treated.  Assembled  men  are  susceptible  of  very 
diverse  impressions,  which  are  not  felt  in  the  same  degree  by 
a  single  man.  We  must  beware  of  proceeding  too  far,  when 
we  use  the  reductio  ad  absurdum. 

Sense  of  the  Beautiful.  What  is  the  beautiful  in  such  mat- 
ters as  preaching  has  to  do  with  1  Is  it  different  from  the 
good  ?  Can  we  at  least  distinguish  it  from  the  good  %  The 
good  is  its  ground,  and  under  certain  condition-s  the  good  be- 
comes the  beautiful.  Analysis  may  discover  these  condi- 
tions, which  are  harmony,  unity,  grandeur.  By  making 
these  characters  prominent,  we  may  give  to  the  good  the 
form  of  the  beautiful.  The  preacher  may  do  this ;  we  see 
not  why  we  should  deprive  truth  and  goodness  of  any  one  of 
their  advantages  ;  but  he  must  not  present  the  beautiful  as  a 
motive,  to  itself  alone,  and  in  itself  The  manifest  relation 
of  the  good  to  the  beautiful  has  led  to  great  errors,  to  the 
idea  of  the  aesthetic  culture  of  the  soul,  the  idea  that  the  de- 
velopment of  taste  is  the  best  preparation  for  virtue.  So  far 
from  this  is  the  truth,  that  a  literary  education  badly  direct- 
ed, will  result  in  perverting  the  soul,  in  misdirecting  it,  and 
giving  it  a  factitious  nurture.  Literary  talent  is  a  great  snare ; 
in  man  the  sinner,  it  easily  becomes  the  unrighteous  mam- 
mon.   The  preacher  is  not  to  regard  the  subjects  which  he 


SYMPATHETIC    AFFECTIONS.  215 

has  to  treat,  from  an  essentially  aesthetic  point  of  view ; 
there  cannot  but  be  danger  in  doing  so. 

Sympathetic  Affections.  The  sympathetic  affections,  which, 
apart  from  the  reflex  idea  of  duty  and  the  intention  of  obe- 
dience, unite  our  existence  to  that  of  others,  of  individuals  or 
the  community,  and,  for  a  moment,  dispossess  us  of  our- 
selves, coincide  with  the  spirit  and  design  of  the  gospel,  and 
bear  testimony  to  it.  God,  who  put  these  affections  within 
us,  cannot  condenon  them,  they  are  a  law  of  our  nature.  We 
may  avail  ourselves  of  them,  appeal  to  them,  excite  the  do- 
mestic affections,  patriotism,  friendship,  admiration,  grati- 
tude ;  still,  however,  giving  to  them  a  subordinate  position 
and  importance.  Whatever  of  good  remains  in  us  since  our 
fall,  we  must  gather  up  in  order  to  present  it  in  homage  to 
God.  Let  us  cast^  all  into  the  treasury  of  God  ;  let  everj^- 
thing  lose  itself  in  the  ocean  of  his  love.  By  exercising 
love  to  creatures,  we  exercise  love  to  Him. 

Of  Emotion.  Admitting  the  use  of  all  these  motives  or 
means  of  impression,  another  question  presents  itself.  Is  it 
proper  to  excite  emotion  ?  And  I  ask  whether  it  is  possible 
not  to  do  this,  especially  supposing  that  we  have  been  able  to 
make  use  of  all  the  appliances  of  which  we  have  been  speak- 
ing? Is  the  distinction  which  some  would  make  between 
moving  and  exciting  emotion,  between  movement  and  emo- 
tion, a  real  distinction  ? 

What  is  an  affection  but  a  prolonged  emotion,  an  emotion 
diffused  through  the  whole  life  1  What  is  an  emotion  but  an 
affection  excited  for  the  instant  ?  Though  we  may  in  a  given 
case,  resolve  on  an  action  without  exciting  a  present  sensible 
emotion,  we  can  only  get  the  control  of  a  life  by  exciting  an 
affection,  which  is  to  emotion  what  the  whole  is  to  its  parts, 
a  tree  to  its  branches,  any  fact  whatever  to  its  various  inci- 
dents. It  is  impossible  that  our  affection  should  not  have 
its  distmct  exercises,  which  are  emotions. 


216  OF  EMOTION". 

Affection,  without  being  dormant  or  languishing,  reposes, 
until  something  external,  a  fact  or  a  word,  touches  and  ex- 
cites it ;  but  this  fact,  this  word,  in  some  sort,  rouses  it ;  a 
particular  movement  has  place  in  the  general  movement; 
this  particular  movement  is  emotion. 

'  There  is,  likewise,  a  distinction  to  be  made  between  emo- 
tions ;  some,  by  their  very  nature,  or  by  the  nature  of  the 
affected  part,  are  more  vivid,  others  less  so ;  but  I  say  of  both 
kinds,  that  the  distinct  moment  in  which  we  make  an  appeal 
to  them,  is  a  moment  when  an  emotion  takes  place. 

It  will  be  said  :  show  this  aflection  the  objects  which  cor- 
respond to  it,  but  do  nothing  more  ;  give  fuel  to  this 
flame,  but  do  not  blow  upon  it.  These  distinctions,  which 
seem  real  at  the  first  glance,  vanish  at  the  second.  What 
then  is  it  that  produces  emotion,  but  the  act  of  approximating 
to  the  affection  the  objects  which  correspond  to  it  ?  And 
when  you  say,  "  It  is  one  thing  to  feed  the  flame,  it  is  anoth- 
er thing  to  blow  upon  it,"  you  deceive  yourself  with  the  image 
which  you  use  ;  or  rather,  it  does  not  deceive  you,  this 
human  breath  is  also  fuel  for  the  flame.  This  breath  is 
something  ;  there  is  more  than  a  simple  disturbance  or  dis- 
placement of  the  air  ;  breath,  in  eloquence,  is  its  facts,  its 
reasons.  You  cannot,  without  something  of  the  kind,  ren- 
der more  vivid  for  the  instant  the  sense  of  the  present  affec- 
tion. Just  as  you  cannot  present  to  an  affection  the  facts  or 
ideas  which  correspond  to  it,  without  exciting  more  or  less 
of  emotion. 

On  certain  subjects,  if  we  do  not  move  the  feelings  we 
are  not  complete.  If  we  have  not  done  this,  we  have  not 
said  everything.  We  may  appear  to  be  complete  ;  in  one 
sense  we  may  have  been  so  ;  reason  may  have  been  con- 
vinced and  conscience  enlightened,  but  if  we  have  reached 
only  the  speculative  powers,  if  we  have  not,  as  far  as  possi- 
ble, brought  the  emotional  parts  of  the  soul  into  contact  with 


OF    EMOTION.  217 

their  appropriate  objects  ;  if,  in  a  word,  we  have  not  moved 
the  feelings,  we  have  stopped  in  mid-course.  Will  the  hear- 
ers do  the  rest  of  themselves  ?  Shall  we  adopt  the  false 
idea  that  the  generality  of  the  hearers  will  address  discourse 
to  themselves  which  we  were  unwilling  to  address  to  them  ^ 
Will  our  appearing  not  to  be  moved,  be  a  means  of  moving 
them  1  For  after  all  what  we  are  not  willmg  to  do,  it  is 
necessary  they  should  do  ;  they  must  penetrate  their  own 
heart  with  arrows  which  we  throw  at  a  good  mark,  but  not 
with  sufficient  force. 

If  we  are  not  permitted  to  move  the  feelings,  what  shall 
we  say  of  the  example  which  the  writers  of  the  Bible  have 
set  us — the  most  pathethic  of  all  writers, — who  did  not 
think  that  Jesus  Christ  was  fully  preached,  unless  he  was 
'•  so  vividly  set  forth,  that  he  seemed  to  be  a  second  time 
crucified  before  their  eyes."  (Galatians,  iii.  1.) 

Is  not  the  Gospel  in  itself,  independently  of  the  language 
of  its  writers,  adapted  to  move  feeling,  by  presenting  facts, 
realities  to  us,  instead  of  abstract  ideas,  and  by  pressing  them 
on  our  heart  ? 

•  We  may  then,  we  should  address  the  feelings,  but  not 
without  rule  or  measure.  Our  rhetoric  differs  from  that  of 
the  ancients.  They  might  say  :  "  J)olus,  an  virtus,  quis  in  hoste 
requiraty  * 

It  is  a  remarkable  thing — the  distinction  which  the  Athenians 
made  in  this  matter,  between  the  bar  and  the  senate.  They  per- 
mitted no  appeals  to  feeling  in  addresses  to  the  judges  of  the 
Areopagus  ;  in  other  words,  no  motive  was  ever  to  be  pre- 
sented to  them,  except  the  motive,  equable  always,  of  justice 
and  of  truth.  I  know  not  whether  the  Athenians  did  not  for- 
get that  the  mind  also  has  its  illusions,  and  that  the  heart  is 
the  dupe  of  the  mind,  as  well  as  the  mind  of  the  heartf 

*ViEGiL,  ^neid,  ii.  390. 

f  Louis  XVI.  and  M.  Desere. 
10 


218  OF   EMOTION. 

But  be  this  as  it  may,  the  Athenians,  out  of  the  Areopagus. 
abundantly  indemnified  themselves  for  this  restriction,  which 
they  would  not  have  imposed  on  themselves  in  judicial  affairs, 
if  they  had  not  felt  how  contrary  it  was  to  their  nature 
generally.  Passion  overflowed  in  political  eloquence,  where, 
since  law,  as  Bossuet  says,  was  no  longer  acknowledged  by  the 
people  as  reason,  but  where  the  will  of  the  people  was  itself 
law  and  reason,  the  eloquence  which,  by  any  means  whatso- 
ever, swayed  the  general  will,  was  always  right. 

Notwithstanding  this,  the  Greeks  did  not  refrain  from 
maintaining  theoretically,  that  eloquence  ought  to  be  devoted 
to  the  service  of  truth,  and  indeed,  that  eloquence  and  truth 
were  essentially  united,  though  in  practice  they  showed  little 
scruple  as  to  the  choice  of  means.  The  Romans,  in  practice, 
were  the  same,  and  their  theory  accorded  with  their  practice. 
Their  rhetoricians  plainly  authorized  everything  which  was 
suited  to  deceive  the  mind,  and  to  prevail  over  it,  jper  fas  et 
nefas.  Their  rhetoric  does  not  imperfectly  resemble  the 
politics  of  ihe  Prince* 

We  who  do  not  think  it  necessary  or  possible  to  interdict 
emotion,  give  different  rules.  We  are  not  envious  of  a  tri- 
umph obtained  by  surprise  or  by  violence. 

We  maintain  that  emotion  should  neither  replace  nor  pre- 
cede proof.  The  road  doubtless  would  be  shorter,  for  with 
the  people  an  image  is  more  forcible  than  an  idea.  For  de- 
ciding great  questions,  passion  is  more  suitable  than  reasoning. 

We  must  neither  multiply  nor  prolong  sudden  onsets,  es- 
pecially if  they  are  powerful.  Crebris  commotionibus  mens 
obrigescit  et  est  contra  naturam^  ut  quce  summa  sunt,  diutina 
sint.\ 

*  "Deceitful  weapons." 

Ingenium  velox,  audacia  perdita,  sermo 

Promptus  et  Isseo  torrentior.         (Juvenal,  8atire  iii) 

f  Eeasmus,  Ecclesiastes,  lib.  3,  cap.  lix. 


OP  EMOTION.  219 

In  the  next  place,  while  we  are  in  favor  of  emotion  and 
even  of  agitation,  we  are  opposed  to  perturbation.  It  is  ne- 
cessary that  thought  should  react,  that  its  action  be  not  sus- 
pended. We  must  reserve  space  for  contemplation.  Emo- 
tion should  not  interfere  with  clearness  and  precision  of  ideas. 
Emotion  otherwise  would  not  be  legitimate,  or  would  pay  no 
regard  to  our  liberty ;  it  would  be  passion. 

Nothing  in  the  soul  is  lasting,  which  has  not  an  idea  for  its 
internal  support.  Nothing  of  a  nature  purely  passiv^  is  last- 
ing.    Nil  citius  arescit  lacryma. 

An  idea  nourishes,  renews  emotion,  which,  left  to  itself,  is 
dissipated.  This  consideration  has  weight,  especially  in  the 
eloquence  of  the  pulpit,  which  is  not  in  haste  as  to  the  settle- 
ment of  accounts. 

We  are  mistaken  also,  if  we  think  that  affection  will  re- 
spond to  an  appeal  in  proportion  to  its  greater  vividness  and 
force.  "  God  is  not  always  in  the  whirlwind."  (1  Kings, 
xix.  2,  12.) 

Si  vis  me  flere,  dolendum  est 
Primum  ipsi  tibi.* 

The  poet  does  not  say  flendum^  but  dolendum  est.  Re- 
serve has  a  great  force.  Figuratively  and  literally  too, 
sometimes,  the  remark  is  true,  "  The  more  you  cry  the  less 
will  you  be  heard."  It  is  of  more  avail  in  regard  to  the 
effect  we  desire  to  produce,  to  have  the  appearance  of  feeling 
more  than  we  express,  than  that  of  expressing  more  than  we 
feel ;  and  the  hearer  partakes  the  more  of  our  emotion,  the 
more  he  perceives  that  we  are  suppressing  it. 

There  is  in  reserve,  moreover,  something  manly  and  digni- 
fied. The  eloquence  of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  though 
entirely  free,  is  not  a  violent  and  convulsive  eloquence.  We 
add  that  nothing  approaches  nearer  to  the  ridiculous  than  an 

^  HoEACE,  Art  of  Poetry,  verse  102. 


220  OF  EMOTION. 

attempt  to  be  affecting,  which  is,  at  the  same  time,  violent  and 
unsuccessful.     It  may  be  said  : 

Segnius  irritant  animos  demissa  per  aurem ; 

but  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  irritating  minds. 

We  may  apply  to  the  pathetic  or  to  passion  what  has 
been  said  of  ridicule  : 

.  Ridiculum  acri 

Fortius  et  melius  magnas  plerumque  secat  re8;f 

but  we  have  to  do  now  not  with  cutting  (secare)  the  knot,  but 
untying  it.  To  reason  otherwise  is  to  imitate  that  bad  modern 
art  of  poetry,  condemned  by  Aristotle  two  thousand  years 
ago,  which  would  strike  hard  rather  than  justly,  and  confound 
the  understanding  rather  than  touch  the  soul,  and  which  boasts 
of  this  rudeness  and  exclaims  that  the  art  is  in  good  condi- 
tion. 

It  will  be  said,  perhaps,  that  zeal  cannot  observe  these 
rules,  that  those  whom  the  voice  of  the  preacher  converts, 
are  brands  plucked  from  the  fire,  that  his  word  is  a  cry  of 
alarm,  and  that  it  is  as  unreasonable  to  wish  to  drown  the 
voice,  as  it  would  be  to  prescribe  a  certain  accent  and  vol- 
ume for  a  man's  voice,  who,  in  view  of  a  house  in  flames, 
should  raise  the  cry  of  fire.  Very  well ;  but  that  religion 
which  God  made  as  he  pleased,  is  a  religion  of  thought  and  a 
religion  of  persuasion  ;  it  cannot  renounce  these  characteris- 
tics without  changing  its  nature ;  for  they  are  essential  to  it ; 
one  is  not  a  Christian  if  his  religion  be  not  the  subject  of  his 
thought  and  of  his  consent.  Now  both  are  incompatible 
with  this  violent  and  boisterous  eloquence. 

Preachers  of  the  highest  order  J  are  cited,  whose  words  over- 

*  Horace,  Art  of  Poetry,  verse  1 80. 
\  Horace,  Satire  x.,  verses  14,  15. 
X  Wesley,  Whitefield. 


OF  EMOTION.  221 

powered  thousands  of  hearers  crowded  about  them  under  the 
vault  of  heaven,  and  filled  a  vast  plain  with  their  groans  and 
sighs.  I  reply,  that  truth  in  certain  times  and  with  certain 
persons,  has  in  itself  overwhelming  force.  I  reply,  that  it  is 
not  certain  that  the  most  numerous  and  trustworthy  conquests 
of  these  preachers  were  among  those  who  were  so  overwhelm- 
ed. I  reply  finally,  that  the  preacher  need  not  concern  himself 
with  symptoms,  provided  he  is  conscious  to  himself  of  having 
preached  not  to  the  nerves  of  his  hearers,  exercising  a  physical 
violence  upon  them,  but  to  their  reason,  their  conscience,  and 
their  heart.  Moreover,  rules  are  not  absolute ;  we  condemn 
nothing  until  we  have  examined  it,  and  we  do  not  undertake  to 
pronounce  sentence  on  exercises  of  emotion.  We  only  say, 
let  not  the  exercise  of  thought  be  interrupted,  and  let  there 
be  no  violation  of  internal  liberty. 

As  examples  of  what  may  be  effected  apart  from  the  ex- 
ercise of  reason,  by  an  image,  a  recollection,  a  gesture,  any 
word  or  thing,  which  abruptly  and  suddenly  agitates  the 
imagination  or  the  senses,  we  cite  Mark  Antony  uncover- 
ing, counting  the  wounds  of  Caesar,  and  the  English  soldier 
who  was  mutilated  by  the  Spaniards,  and  whose  words  Mirar 
beau  introduces  in  this  manner:  "It  is  always  under  the 
illusion  of  the  passions  that  political  assemblies  have  decreed 
war.  You  are  all  acquainted  with  the  remark  of  the  sailor 
which  was  the  occasion  of  the  declaration  of  the  war  of  Eng- 
land with  Spain  in  1740 :  '  When  the  Spaniards  after  mutilat- 
ing me  offered  me  death  I  commended  my  soul  to  God^  and 
the  revenge  of  my  wrong  to  my  country.''  This  sailor  was 
truly  an  eloquent  man,  but  the  war  which  he  kindled  was 
neither  just  nor  politic ;  neither  the  king  of  England  nor  his 
ministers  desired  it."* 

Mirabeau,  himself,  employed  a  stroke  of  this  kind  in  a 
speech  on  a  proposition  to  decree  that  the  Catholic  religion 
*  Mirabeau,  Discours  sur  le  droit  de  la  guerre. 


222  OF  EMOTION. 

should  never  be  the  religion  of  the  State :  "I  would  observe 
to  him  who  has  spoken  before  me,  that  no  one  doubts  that 
under  a  reign  signalized  by  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of 
Nantes,  all  kinds  of  intolerance  were  consecrated.  I  will 
say  further,  that  the  remembrance  of  what  despots  have  done 
should  not  be  a  pattern  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done  by 
the  representatives  of  a  people  who  desire  to  be  free.  But 
as  historical  references  are  proper  on  the  subject  which  en- 
gages us,  let  me  make  one  only  :  Remember,  sirs,  that  from 
this  place,  this  very  tribune  in  which  I  am  speaking,  I  see 
the  window  of  the  palace,  in  which  factious  men  combining 
temporal  interests  with  the  most  sacred  interests  of  religion, 
obtained  from  the  hand  of  the  king  of  the  French,  feeble 
man,  the  fatal  arquebus  wliich  gave  the  signal  of  the  massa- 
cre of  St.  Bartholomew."* 

We  will  also  recall  the  example  of  Gerbier,  presenting  to 
the  audience  the  orphans  for  whom  he  was  pleading. 

Without  condemning  any  of  the  great  effects  of  eloquence, 
which  would  be  absurd  and  barbarous,  we  think  we  may 
generally  prefer  to  abrupt  effects,  an  effect  which  abides, 
which  is  more  deep  than  violent,  an  eloquence  little  indebted 
to  accidental  causes,  but  penetrating. 

We  add  another  rule  :  We  must  give  preference  to  the 
exercise  of  the  most  elevated  affections.  We  may  draw 
tears  with  a  blow  of  the  fist.  There  are  generous  tears,  and 
there  are  tears  too  ready  to  flow.  It  is  doubtless  superfluous 
to  say  that  we  must  not  speak  of  our  own  emotions. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  sentiments  which  a  preacher  should 
endeavor  to  excite  in  his  auditory.  The  same  are  the  senti- 
ments with  which  he  himself  should  be  exercised.  We  have 
yet,  however,  to  speak  of  the  general  and  characteristic 
spirit  of  christian  preaching.  It  is  comprehended  in  unction 
and  authority. 

*  MiuAiiEAU,  tome  ii.,  p.  305. 


OF  UNCTION.  223 


§3.   Of  Unction,* 

This  word,  taken  in  its  etymology,  and  in  its  primitive  ac- 
ceptation, denotes  no  special  quality  of  preaching,  but  rath- 
er the  grace  and  the  efficacy  which  are  connected  with  it  by 
the  spirit  of  God  ;  a  kind  of  seal  and  sanction  which  con- 
sists less  in  outward  signs  than  in  an  impression  received  by 
the  soul.  But  as,  in  ascending  to  the  cause  of  this  effect,  we 
distinguish  particularly  certain  characters,  it  is  to  the  reunion 
of  these  characters  that  we  have  given  the  name  of  imction. 
Unction  seems  to  me  to  be  the  total  character  of  the  Gospel ; 
to  be  recognized,  doubtless,  in  each  of  its  parts,  but  es- 
pecially apprehensible  in  their  assemblage.  It  is  the  general 
savor  of  Christianity ;  it  is  a  gravity  accompanied  by  tender- 
ness, a  severity  tempered  with  sweetness,  a  majesty  associat- 
ed with  intimacy  ;  the  true  contemperature  of  the  Christian 
dispensation,  in  which,  according  to  the  Psalmist's  expression, 
"  Mercy  and  truth  have  met  together,  righteousness  and 
peace  have  kissed  each  other." — Ps.  Ixxxv.  10.  It  is  so 
proper  a  thing  to  Christianity  and  to  Christian  matters,  that 
we  scarcely  can  think  of  transferring  the  term  to  other 
spheres,  and  when  we  meet  with  it  applied  to  other  things 
than  Christian  discourse,  or  Christian  actions,  we  are  as- 
tonished, and  can  only  regard  it  as  an  analogy  or  a  metaphor. 

From  the  fact  that  the  whole  modern  world  has   been 

*  The  remarks  on  unction,  promised  in  tlie  preceding  paragraph, 
are  not  found  in  M.  Vinet's  manuscripts  relating  to  Homiletics.  To 
fill  up  this  chasm,  we  reproduce  here  the  chapter  on  Unction  in  the 
Pastoral  Theology,  (pages  212-215,  of  our  translation.)  We  think 
ouselves  the  more  authorized  to  do  this,  as  a  very  short  summary  of 
some  of  the  ideas  in  this  chapter  in  one  of  the  author's  note-books, 
seems  to  indicate,  that  as  he  was  called  to  occupy  himself  with  the 
same  subject  twice,  he  used  the  same  notes  in  both  courses. — (Edi- 

9>ORS  ) 


224  OF  UNCTION. 

wholly  imbued  with  Christianity,  many  modem  works,  which 
are  neither  Christian  nor  even  religious,  cannot  be  other- 
wise marked  than  by  the  word  unction  ;  while  there  is  no 
work  of  antiquity  that  awakens  this  idea. 
^  The  idea  that  Maury*  gives  of  unction  is  no  other  than 
that  of  Christian  pathos.  The  definition  of  Blair  is  more  dis- 
tinctly identical  with  ours.  "  Gravity  and  warmth  united," 
according  to  this  author,  "  form  that  character  of  preaching 
which  the  French  call  unction  ;  the  affecting,  the  penetrating, 
interesting  manner,  flowing  from  a  strong  sensibility  of  heart 
in  the  preacher  to  the  importance  of  those  truths  which  he 
delivers,  and  an  earnest  desire  that  they  may  make  a  full  im- 
pression on  the  hearts  of  his  hearers."f 

M.  Dutoit  Membrini  thinks  that,  in  order  to  define  unc- 
tion, an  intimate  and  mysterious  quality,  we  must  guard 
against  formal  definition  and  analysis.  It  is  by  the  effects  of 
unction  and  by  analogies  that  he  would  explain  it,  or,  to  speak 
better,  give  us  a  taste  of  it : 

"  Unction  is  a  mild  warmth  which  causes  itself  to  be  felt 
in  the  powers  of  the  soul.  It  produces  in  the  spiritual  sphere 
the  same  effects  as  the  sun  in  the  physical ;  it  enlightens  and 
it  warms.  It  puts  light  in  the  soul  ;  it  puts  warmth  in  the 
heart.  It  causes  us  to  know  and  to  love  ;  it  fills  us  with 
emotion." 

I  willingly  admit  that  it  is  a  light  which  warms  and  a 
warmth  which  enlightens ;  and  I  would  recall  on  this  subject 
the  words  of  St.  John  :  "  The  anointing  which  you  have  re- 
ceived from  him  abideth  in  you,  and  this  anointing  teaches 
you  all  things." — 1  John,  ii.  27. 

M.  Dutoit  Membrini  continues  thus  :  "  Its  only  source  is 
a  regenerate  and  gracious  spirit.     It  is  a  gift  which  exhausts 

*  Maury,  Essai  sur  V Eloquence  de  la  Chaire  (chap.  Ixxxiii.)  de 
rOnction. 

f  Blair  (Lect.  xxix.),  Eloquence  of  the  Pulpit. 


OF  UNCTIOK.  225 

itself  and  is  lost  if  we  do  not  renew  this  sacred  fire,  which 
we  must  always  keep  burning  ;  that  which  feeds  it  is  the  in- 
ternal cross,  self-denial,  prayer  and  penitence.  Unction,  in 
religious  subjects,  is  what  in  the  poets  is  called  enthusiasm. 
Thus  unction  is  the  heart  and  the  power  of  the  soul,  nourished, 
kindled,  by  the  sweet  influence  of  grace.  It  is  a  soft,  de- 
licious, lively,  inward,  profound,  mellifluous  feeling. 

"  Unction,  then,  is  that  mild,  soft,  nourishing,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  luminous  heat,  which  illumines  the  spirit,  pene- 
trates the  heart,  moves  it,  transports  it,  and  which  he  who 
has  received  it  conveys  to  the  souls  and  the  hearts  which  are 
prepared  to  receive  it  also. 

"  Unction  is  felt,  is  experienced,  it  cannot  be  analysed.  It 
makes  its  impression  silently,  and  without  the  aid  of  reflec- 
tion. It  is  conveyed  in  simplicity,  and  received  in  the  same 
way  by  the  heart  into  which  the  warmth  of  the  preacher 
passes.  Ordinarily,  it  produces  its  effect,  while  as  yet  the 
taste  of  it  is  not  developed  in  us,  without  our  being  able  to 
give  a  reason  to  ourselves  of  what  has  made  the  impression. 
We  feel,  we  experience,  we  are  touched,  we  can  hardly  say 
why. 

"  We  may  apply  to  him  who  has  received  it  these  words 
of  the  prophet  Isaiah  :  '  Behold,  I  will  make  thee  a  new  sharp 
threshing  instrument  having  teeth.' — Isaiah,  xli.  15.  This 
man  makes  furrows  in  hearts."* 

From  all  that  has  been  said,  we  must  not  conclude  that 
unction,  which  has  much  the  same  principle  as  piety,  is  ex- 
actly proportioned  to  piety.  Unction  may  be  very  unequal 
in  two  preachers,  equal  in  piety  ;  but  it  is  too  closely  related 
to  Christianity  to  be  absolutely  wanting  to  truly  Christian 
preaching.  Certain  obstacles,  some  natural,  others  of  error 
or  of  habit,  may  do  injury  to  unction,  and  obstruct,  so  to 

*  DuTOiT  Membrini,  La  Philosophie  chretienne.  Lausanne,  1800, 
tome  i.,  pages  92  e^  seq. 

10* 


226  OF  UNCTION. 

speak,  the  passage  of  this  soft  and  holy  oil,  which  should  al 
ways  flow,  to  lubricate  all  the  articulations  of  thought,  to 
render  all  the  movements  of  discourse  easy  and  just,  to  pene- 
trate, to  nourish  speech.  There  is  no  artificial  method  of 
^  obtaining  unction  ;  the  oil  flows  of  itself  from  the  olive  ;  the 
most  forcible  pressure  will  not  produce  a  drop  from  the 
earth,  or  from  a  flint ;  but  there  are  means,  if  I  may  say  so, 
by  which  we  may  keep,  without  unction,  even  a  good  basis 
of  piety ;  or,  of  dissembling  the  unction  which  is  in  us,  and 
■  of  restraining  it  from  flowing  without.  There  are  things  in- 
compatible with  unction  :  Such  are  wit,*  analysis  too  strict, 
a  tone  too  dictatorial,  logic  too  formal,  irony,  the  use  of  too 
secular  or  too  abstract  language,  a  form  too  literary  ;  finally, 
a  style  too  compact  and  too  close,  for  unction  supposes  abun- 
dance, overflow,  fluidity,  pliableness. 

It  is  the  absence,  rather  than  the  presence  of  unction,  that 
gives  us  its  idea.  It  is  from  its  opposite  that  we  obtain  its 
distinct  notion,  not,  however,  that  it  is  but  a  negative  quality ; 
on  the  contrary,  is  is  the  most  positive ;  but  positive  in  the 
sense  of  an  odor,  of  a  color,  of  a  savor. 

But  let  us  not  contract  the  idea  of  unction  by  reducing  it 
to  an  effeminate  mildness,  a  wordy  abundance,  a  weeping 
pathos.  We  must  not  think  that  we  cannot  have  unction 
except  on  the  condition  of  interdicting  strictness  and  consec- 
utiveness  in  argument,  and  that  boldness  of  accent,  that  holy 
vehemence  which  certain  subjects  demand,  and  without  which, 
in  treating  them,  we  should  be  in  fault. 

Massillon  has  unction,  as  Maury  thinks,  in  a  piece  which 
contains  nothing  but  reproaches. f  As  an  example,  we  cite 
Bossuet  also,  in  the  conclusion  of  a  sermon  or\  final  impenitence. 

*  Nevertheless,  St,  Bernard  and  Augustin  have  wit  and  unction, 
f  Maury,  Eloquence  de  la   Chaire  (chap.  Ixxii.)  de  VOnction.     See 
Massillon,  the  conclusion  of  the  first  part  of  the  sermon,  Sur  VAvr 


OF  AUTHOKITY.  227 

§  4.   0/*  Authority. 

Authority  is,  in  general,  the  right  to  be  believed  or  obeyed, 
the  right  to  require  confidence  or  obedience.  But  the  word 
Authority^  denotes  also,  the  consciousness  and  exercise  of  this 
right ;  and  in  this  sense,  we  may  make  authority  one  of  the 
conditions  of  preaching,  and  one  of  the  qualities  of  a  preach- 
er. It  is  not  easy  to  say  how  it  reveals  itself;  it  is  felt 
however,  its  absence  is  felt  yet  more ;  but  it  camiot  be  de- 
composed into  separate  and  comprehensive  elements.  We 
can  scarcely  define  and  commend  the  sentiment  itself,  which 
authority  may  give  to  our  language  and  our  accent,  but  if  the 
sentiment  exists,  the  discourse  will  not  fail  to  be  marked  with 
authority,  and  to  put  into  relief,  so  to  speak,  its  minutest  details. 

We  cannot  say  that  authority  is  exclusively  appropriate  to 
pulpit  discourse.  We  look  for  it,  it  gives  us  pleasure  to  per- 
ceive it  in  all  public  discourse.  The  orator's  confidence  in 
his  own  word,  inspires  the  auditory  with  confidence.  We 
like  to  see  a  man  sensible  of  what  the  force  of  his  conviction 
and  the  seriousness  of  his  object  demands  from  others.  Truth 
has  rights  which  pass  to  its  representative,  its  organ.  The 
most  modest  man  should  be  able  to  sacrifice  his  modesty  to 
the  dignity  of  truth,  and  firmness  becomes  him  when  he  is 
speaking  in  its  behalf.  But  authority  is  especially  essential 
in  a  Christian  preacher,  who  speaks  on  the  part  of  God  him- 
self, and  who  announces  the  oracles  of  God,  We  should 
ofiend  sincere  souls  by  not  putting  this  seal  on  our  discourse ; 
we  should  even  surprise  those  who  do  not  believe  our  gospel. 
They  are  not  at  our  point  of  view,  but  they  well  know  what  it 
ought  to  be ;  if  they  allow  us  to  be  in  earnest,  they  allow  us 
at  the  same  time  to  speak  with  authority,  and  by  addressing 
them  in  any  other  tone  than  that  of  authority,  we  succeed 
only  in  scandalizing  and  estranging  them  the  more. 

We  speak  of  true  authority,  that  which  rests  entirely  on 


228  OF  AUTHORITY. 

conviction  and  zeal,  and  through  which  humility  and  charity 
shine,  as  through  a  pure  and  transparent  medium.  Every 
one  readily  distinguishes  it  from  that  magisterial  stateliness, 
that  studied  importance,  to  which  ministers  who  have  the 
spirit  of  their  order  rather  than  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  are 
necessarily  exposed,  from  their  holding  an  officially  protected 
position,  and  from  their  being  accustomed  to  speak  without 
contradiction  or  interruption.  If  the  Prince  de  Vendome 
had  heard  only  ministers  of  this  class,  one  might  excuse 
him  for  replying  to  Louis  XIV.,  who  urged  him  to  go  to 
church :  "  Sire,  I  cannot  go  to  hear  a  man  who  says  whatever 
he  pleases,  and  to  whom  no  one  has  the  liberty  of  replying." 
For  the  circumstance  of  speaking  alone,  and  of  speaking  with- 
out fearing  a  reply,  only  gives  offence  when  it  is  made  offens- 
ive. In  itself  it  is  not  unacceptable,  but  we  must  acknowl- 
edge that  arrogance  is  doubly  repulsive  in  a  man  who  knows 
too  well  that  he  is  not  to  be  replied  to. 

The  accent  of  true  authority,  on  the  contrary,  is  welcome 
to  almost  every  one.  We  are  prepossessed  in  favor  of  men 
who,  in  this  world  of  uncertainty  and  perplexity,  express 
themselves  on  a  grave  subject  with  confidence  and  command. 
It  is,  indeed,  what  first  strikes  us  in  an  orator,  and  what  con- 
ciliates attention  to  him,  especially  when  it  is  seen  that  he 
draws  all  his  authority  from  his  message  and  not  from  him- 
self, and  that  he  is  as  modest  as  he  is  assured.  What  was  it 
that  astonished  the  Jewish  people  in  the  doctrine  of  Jesus 
Christ?  Was  it  that  doctrine  itself ?  It  was  chiefly  the  au-  ^ 
thority  with  which  Jesus  Christ  expressed  it.  "  For  he  taught 
them,"  says  Saint  Matthew,  (vii.  28,  29,)  "  as  one  having  au- 
thority, and  not  as  the  Scribes." 

Authority  doubtless  became  Jesus  Christ,  but  it  also  be- 

-(■nes  the  truth ;  authority  is  inherent  in  truth ;  and  those 

*\ho,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  declare  to  the  world  that 

truth  which  regenerates  and  saves,  have  the  right,  or  rather, 


OF  AUTHORITY.  229 

are  under  obligation  to  speak  it  in  the  same  accent  with  him- 
self. If  the  servants  are  not  greater  than  their  master,  neither 
are  they  in  a  certain  sense  less  than  their  master  ;  the  truth 
which  they  bring  to  the  world,  is  not  less  truth  in  their  mouth 
than  in  his.  It  does  not  become  them  to  speak  as  the  scribes, 
for  they  are  not  seeking  by  a  thousand  subtile  windings,  to 
introduce  their  own  inventions  into  the  minds  of  men ;  they 
have  a  sovereign  message  to  deliver;  they  are  to  speak  as 
ambassadors  of  a  king,  whom  they  represent.  Their  person 
is  nothing,  their  message  is  the  whole ;  and  not  for  their  per- 
son, but  for  their  message,  do  they  claim  respect ;  but  they 
would  be  as  culpable  not  to  demand  this  respect  for  the  di- 
vine thought  of  which  they  are  the  depositaries,  as  they  would 
be  foolish  and  ridiculous  to  demand  it  for  their  own  thoughts. 
Saint  Paul,  accordingly,  fears  not  to  enjoin  on  Titus,  and 
doubtless  on  all  mmisters  of  the  gospel,  "  to  exhort  and  re- 
prove with  all  authority."  (Titus,  ii.  15.)  An  injunction 
which  must  seem  remarkable,  when  we  remember  that  it 
came  from  him  who  of  all  men,  perhaps,  had  most  respect 
for  the  liberty  of  the  human  conscience,  who  most  rigidly 
refrained  from  controlling  the  faith  of  his  disciples,  who  most 
carefully  avoided  identifying  his  counsel  with  commands,  and 
who  has  most  strenuously  insisted  that  the  obedience  of  the 
faithful  should  be  a  reasonable  or  rational  obMience.  He  is 
not  inconsistent  with  himself.  It  is  the  duty  of  some  to  ex- 
amine before  believing ;  it  is  the  duty  of  others  to  assert 
boldly  what  they  believe.  This  boldness,  this  dignity,  this 
gravity,  in  a  word  this  authority,  does  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  touch  liberty  ;  it  only  warns  conscience  and  gives  it 
the  alarm.  And  preaching  interferes  wdth  liberty  only  when 
it  disturbs  the  soul  and  overwhelms  it  with  delusions,  and 
when  it  takes  advantage  from  the  noise  and  tumult  it  has  ex- 
cited, to  force  from  us  an  assent  which  we  never  would  have 
given  it,  in  an  attentive,  tender,  but  sedate  frame  of  mind. 


230  OF  AUTHOKITY. 

We  are  obliged  to  admit  that  the  accent  of  authority  is 
somewhat  defective  in  the  preaching  of  our  times,  and  that  com- 
paring preachers  of  the  same  age  with  one  another,  the  Cath- 
olics appear  to  have  the  advantage  in  the  respect  which  we 
are  considering.  Beginning  with  the  Catholics  we  graut  that 
authority,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  being  the  mother-idea  and  the 
fundamental  characteristic  of  the  Catholic  institution,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  it  reproduces  itself  everywhere,  and  that  the 
minister  having  not  only  individual  faith  in  the  religion  which 
he  preaches,  but  belonging  to  a  body  which  interprets,  and  to 
say  the  whole  perpetuates  revelation,  addresses  his  auditory, 
in  one  sense,  from  a  greater  height,  which  the  Protestant 
preacher  cannot  occupy.  It  is  true  that  he  preaches,  and 
so  reasons,  discusses,  examines  as  well  as  the  Protestant  min- 
ister ;  but  all  these  acts  which  imply  similarity  of  position,  are 
interpenetrated  by  a  sense  of  sovereignty  in  matters  of  faith, 
which  belongs  to  no  other  system.  The  subjects  themselves, 
the  form,  the  tone  of  the  discussion,  announce  the  Catholic 
priest ;  and  when  the  priest  and  the  minister  maintain  the 
same  cause,  the  one  pleads  it  as  a  lawyer  the  other  as  an  at- 
torney-general. 

Now,  without  leaving  the  reformed  church,  if  we  inquire 
as  to  the  difference  in  regard  to  authority,  between  our  times 
and  times  more  ancient,  we  find  the  explanation  not  in  a  fee- 
bleness of  conviction  on  the  part  of  ministers,  but  in  a  cir- 
cumstance of  another  nature ;  and  perhaps  by  looking  closely 
at  the  matter  we  shall  find  that  authority  appears  to  have 
diminished,  only  because  it  had  been  exaggerated ;  or  that 
the  cords,  if  we  may  so  speak,  appear  relaxed  at  present  only 
because  they  had  been  drawn  too  tight.  With  the  autliority 
of  conviction  and  of  internal  vocation  which  is  the  whole, 
there  was  unconsciously  mingled  the  authority  of  position  or 
of  external  vocation  ;  and  perhaps  the  latter  had  too  great  a 
share  in  the  assurance  and  loftiness  of  tone  in  preaching. 


OF  AUTHORITY.  231 

There  was  not  then  more  of  true  faith  and  less  of  real  unbe- 
lief than  there  is  with  us ;  but  unbelief  declared  itself  less, 
and  even  less  knew  itself;  unbelief  was  not  then  driven  by 
circumstances  to  the  necessity  of  declaring  or  even  of  exam- 
ining itself;  among  those  who  on  this  point  understood  them- 
selves and  would  no  longer  be  deceived,  the  greater  part, 
whether  from  prudence  or  policy,  were  silent ;  those  who 
divulged  their  infidelity  were  few  in  number,  and  were  blamed 
by  those  who  agreed  with  them  in  opinion. 

In  the  fiction  of  law,  or  to  speak  more  correctly,  in  the 
common  prejudgment,  every  one  was  a  believer.  The 
flocks  remained  m  appearance  entire  and  compact,  the 
church  was  very  much  incorporated  with  the  political  insti- 
tution, faith  was  always  and  with  good  reason  taken  for 
granted,  the  clergy  were  the  quiet  possessors  of  a  strong 
position,  and  of  privileges,  for  the  defence  of  which  some,  I 
think,  had  made  few  sacrifices,  but  against  which,  on  the 
other  hand,  others  had  made  few  efforts.  I  seriously  believe 
that  the  change  which  has  supervened,  and  which  many  de- 
plore, is  a  divine  blessing ;  and  that  if  unbelief  which  was 
formerly  unknown  is  now  acknowledged,  if  opposition  which 
was  concealed  is  now  discovered  and  declare,  there  has  been 
in  this  nothing  but  progress.  At  first  there  appears  to  be  an 
increase  of  infidelity ;  a  more  attentive  examination  dis- 
covers, in  what  has  taken  place,  only  an  increase  of  sincerity 
and  frankness  ;  those  who  by  the  aid  of  carefully-maintained 
vagueness,  and  carefully-avoided  discussions,  supposed  them- 
selves and  were  generally  admitted  to  be  believers,  have 
been  forced  to  take  account  of  themselves,  and  to  render  ac- 
count of  themselves  to  others.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
those  who  have  continued  to  believe  and  profess  faith,  believe 
in  good  earnest  and  profess  to  some  purpose.  Say  and  do  as 
we  will,  there  is  a  sort  of  disbanding  of  that  compact  ma- 
jority which  was  called  the  Church ;  all  kinds  of  causes  have 


232  OF  AUTHORITY. 

concurred  to  produce  this  state  of  things  which  is  every  day 
becoming  more  manifest  and  more  flagrant.  Ministers  long 
since  might  have  seen  that  their  work  was  becoming  more 
and  more  like  that  of  missionaries,  and  that  though  nomi- 
nally at  the  head  of  a  church,  they  have  scarcely  a  nucleus 
left,  and  are  really  called  to  gather  and  constitute  a  church. 
This  state  of  things  is  essentially  the  same  with  that  under 
which  they  have  long  lived,  without  knowing  the  fact ;  their 
real  task  was  formerly  what  it  now  appears  to  have  become ; 
the  difference  is  a  constantly-increasing  light  as  to  positions 
and  relations.  But  what  should  hence  result  in  respect  to 
authority.  If  we  speak  of  a  genuine  authority,  nothing,  or 
rather  a  real  advantage.  Conventional  authority  is  gone  ;  we 
must  cast  ourselves  on  the  other,  that  which  every  interpreter 
of  truth,  under  the  force  of  truth,  may  display.  It  is  true 
that  we  can  rely  no  longer  on  the  implicit  and  silent  assent 
of  a  flock ;  that  is  to  say,  we  have  one  illusion  less  to  re- 
move ;  but  we  may  always  rely  on  the  force  of  truth  and  the 
promises  of  God.  It  is  true  that  the  sheep  no  longer  come 
to  us,  but  that  we  have  to  go  and  even  to  run  after  the  sheep. 
But  did  the  aposties,  who  acknowledged  that  it  was  the  ob- 
ject of  their  ministry  to  beseech  men  to  be  reconciled  to 
God,  (2  Corinthians,  v.  20,)  exhort  with  less  authority  on 
that  account]  (Titus,  ii.  15.)  Is  the  pastor  less  a  pastor 
when  he  runs  after  the  sheep,  than  when  he  feeds  them  with 
his  hand  in  the  fold  from  which  they  do  not  think  of  depart- 
ing 1  This  pursuit  of  the  wandering  sheep,  which  should  al- 
ways be  the  essence  of  our  ministry,  is  more  evidently  so 
than  ever ;  and  if  in  this  pursuit,  the  direction,  the  deviation, 
the  length  of  which  seem  to  be  determined  by  the  sheep 
themselves,  we  appear  to  be  dependent  on  them,  if  through 
hills  and  valleys,  brambles  and  ravines,  that  is  to  say, 
through  all  the  paths  in  which  passion  and  prejudice,  knowl-" 
edge  and  ignorance,  levity  or  sophistry,  may  lead  a  soul 


OF  AUTHOKITT.  233 

astray  from  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  we  are  obliged  to 
pant  after  them  and  patiently  accommodate  our  course  to 
their  disorderly  course,  if  each  epoch  by  renewing  the  forms 
of  error,  constrains  us  to  renew  the  forms  of  truth,  what  is 
there  in  this  charitable  condescension  to  take  away  the  char- 
acter of  that  authority  with  which  preaching  should  always 
be  marked  ?  What !  will  charity  take  away  anything  from 
authority  1  Does  authority  consist  and  appear  in  always  per- 
tinaciously speaking  the  same  language  and  maintaining  the 
same  formulas  ?  And  have  the  infinite  condescensions  of  the 
divine  charity  ever  debased,  have  they  not  rather  embellished 
and  softened  the  holy  majesty  of  God  which  the  Bible  has 
revealed  to  us  ? 

We  must,  however,  confess  that  preaching  in  becoming 
more  definitely  an  entreaty  or  a  contest,  has  lost,  with  some, 
a  part  of  the  character  of  calm  and  serene  majesty,  which, 
in  the  apostles  and  especially  in  their  master,  was  so  ad- 
mirably united  with  the  holy  vehemence  of  charity.  Per- 
haps, also,  dogmatic  theology  and  the  too  minute  exactness 
of  doctrinal  distinctions,  have  interfered  with  simplicity  and 
dignity  —  the  traits  in  which  authority  loves  to  appear. 
We  must  avoid  these  impediments,  and,  without  aflTectation, 
without  studious  efibrt,  by  the  mere  spirit  of  our  calling,  ac- 
quire a  manner,  at  the  same  time  commanding  and  encourag- 
ing, which  all  our  hearers,  without  exception,  require  in  our 
preaching. 

In  regard  to  authority,  I  think  wo  generally  remain  below 
what  is  legitimate,  possible,  necessary.  The  boldness  and 
freedom  of  the  prophets  are  not  enough  apparent  in  our  dis- 
courses. We  fight  with  mock  arms  as  in  a  tournament,  we 
forget  that  a  serious  combat  demands  sharpened  steel,  and 
that  the  semblance  of  a  battle  gives  only  the  semblance  of 
victory.  If  we  had  a  livelier  compassion  for  our  people,  if 
we  had  a  deeper  sense  of  our  responsibility,  in  short,  if  we 


234  OF  AUTHOEITY. 

had  a  higher  and  more  solemn  ideal  of  our  calling,  we  should 
he  above  vain  considerations,  and  certain  compliances,  which, 
to  say  the  truth,  do  not  become  us.  I  admit  that  this,  perhaps, 
is  not  the  idea,  which,  in  the  present  day,  is  formed  of  the 
ministry  ;  but  should  we  conform  ourselves  to  such  an  idea, 
or  reform  ourselves  according  to  it  *?  If  the  maxims  of  the 
world  on  this  subject  are  the  measure  of  our  liberty,  there  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  iiot  descend  lower  and  lower  in 
our  complaisance  ;  if,  on  the  contrary,  we  claim  all  the 
liberty  which  Christianity  allows  us  to  claim  ;  if  instead  of 
suffering  our  ministry  to  be  encroached  upon,  we  demand  for 
it  all  the  authority  which  belongs  to  it,  there  is  every  reason 
to  think  that  the  world,  though  surprised  at  first,  will  yield 
and  accommodate  itself  to  us.  It  loves  courage  and  indepen- 
dence ;  it  is  strong  only  against  the  feeble,  it  is  our  timidity 
that  produces  its  boldness.  Everywhere  and  always,  pro- 
vided we  follow  truth  with  charity,  we  may  make  our 
ministry  what  we  desire  it  to  be.  But  whether  acceptable 
or  not  it  must  have  its  proper  character. 

In  regard  to  authority,  character  and  position  may  have 
some  influence.  One  orator  has  naturally  more  authority 
than  another.  One  church  encourages  the  tone  of  authority 
more  than  another.  But  before  everything  this  accent  in 
preaching  the  Gospel,  is  essential. 

There  is  a  difference  as  to  principle  between  apostolic  au- 
thority and  a  certain  natural  boldness,  which,  however,  is 
not  inconsistent  with  the  other,  but  may  very  properly  be 
associated  with  it.  We  may  speak  with  authority,  and  this 
authority  may  be  deeply  felt,  in  great  humility,  and  even  in 
great  inward  humiliation,  in  great  sadness  of  heart.  He 
who  trembles  in  the  presence  of  God,  is  not  on  that  account 
the  less  bold  in  the  presence  of  men  ;  and  his  very  confusion 
gives  honor  to  God.  Whatever  may  be  his  natural  character 
or  his  external  position,  whether  he  have  little  or  much  talent, 


OF  AUTHOEITY.  235 

little  or  much  understanding,  I  believe  that  under  certain 
conditions  which  I  shall  enumerate,  a  minister  may  preach 
with  much  authority.     The  conditions  are  these  : 

1.  That  he  speak  in  the  name  of  God,  and  as  to  the  things 
of  God,  have  no  wish  to  know  anything,  except  what  he  has 
learnt  from  God  himself.  Our  authority,  as  to  its  principle, 
is  in  our  submission,  and  our  authority  over  others  is  pro- 
portional to  the  authority  of  the  divine  Word  over  ourselves ; 
we  press  upon  them,  if  I  dare  speak  thus,  with  all  the  weight 
with  which  the  truth  presses  upon  us.  Here  appears,  at  the 
same  time,  the  apparent  disadvantage  and  the  real  advantage 
of  the  position  of  the  preacher  when  compared  with  that  of 
any  other  orator. 

The  profane  orator  is  master  of  his  own  thought ;  he  mod- 
ifies it  only  by  itself;  that  the  contrast  may  appear  more 
striking,  let  us  put  him  on  the  same  stage  with  the  evangeli- 
cal preacher — that  of  morality  and  religion.  He  draws  his 
principles  from  his  own  fund,  that  is  to  say,  from  his  reason 
and  his  moral  sense ;  he  connects  with  them,  according  to 
the  laws  of  logic,  their  consequences  and  bearings ;  no  for- 
eign force  has  broken  under  his  feet  the  first  round  of  the 
ladder,  or  removed  the  last ;  his  course  is  free  over  the  entire 
ladder,  master  alike  of  his  point  of  departure,  and  of  his  con- 
clusions. Reason  and  conscience  may,  it  is  very  true,  pass 
for  authorities,  but  they  are  authorities  we  like  to  recognize, 
which,  born  and  developed  with  us,  are  a  part  of  ourselves ; 
to  which  we  at  once  adhere,  by  which  alone  we  take  cogni- 
zance of  our  own  existence,  and  which,  from  their  very  na- 
ture, are  perfectly  exempt  from  the  more  or  less  arbitrary 
character  which  is  inherent  in  all  other  authority.  The  same, 
at  least  we  suppose  so,  in  all  thinking  individuals,  they  ought 
to  conciliate  or  subject  them  to  us ;  and  as  all  the  means  drawn 
from  this  source  have  the  appearance  of  being  at  the  same 
time  ours  and  every  one's,  we  have,  in  case  of  victory,  the 


236  OF  AUTHORITY. 

satisfaction  of  feeling  that  we  are  conquerors,  while  they, 
whom  we  have  persuaded,  have  on  that  account  no  impress- 
ion of  having  been  conquered.  An  agreeable  position  for 
both  parties,  but  very  different  fi^om  that  in  which  evangeli- 
cal eloquence  places  respectively  the  preacher  and  his  audi- 
tory. The  Christian  minister  unquestionably  has  much  to  do 
with  reason  and  conscience ;  aided  by  these,  he  closes  all  the 
outlets  through  which  souls  would  escape  from  the  circle  he 
would  have  them  enter ;  since,  when  once  in  this  enclosure, 
reason  and  conscience  will  retain,  will  fix,  will  establish  them 
in  it,  will,  in  short,  make  them  say,  "  It  is  good"^  for  us  to  be 
here,  let  us  make  tabernacles."  (Matthew,  xvii.  4.)  So  that 
he  does  absolutely  nothing  without  conscience  and  reason. 
But  these  faculties  accept,  they  do  not  create  the  truth ;  the 
truth  is  given ;  given  as  a  sovereign  fact,  given  as  a  divine 
thought,  not  as  a  deduction  of  our  understanding ;  given  as  a 
fact  which  our  faculties  should  explore,  should  employ,  but 
which  they  would  never  have  discovered.  In  a  word,  reason 
and  conscience  are  the  touchstones  of  truth,  and  not  as  in 
other  spheres  the  very  source  of  truth. 

Is  it  not  an  unpleasant  thing  to  a  preacher,  when  he  is  al- 
ways obliged  to  recognize  an  external  authority,  an  authority 
which  is  not  in  him,  which  is  not  his  ?  Yes,  very  unpleasant ; 
if  he  would  chaffer  with  this  authority,  to  bend  it,  it  is  inflex- 
ible ;  if  to  corrupt  it,  it  is  incorruptible  !  Very  unpleasant, 
as  long  as  he  labors  to  make  it  speak  what  every  one  wishes 
to  hear,  to  naturalize  the  supernatural,  to  translate  the  un- 
translatable. But  from  the  moment  that  he  submits  to  it, 
that  he  is  prepared  to  think  human  reason  fallible  and  the  di- 
vine reason  infallible,  then,  walking  no  longer  with  one  foot 
on  the  sand  and  the  other  on  the  rock,  placing  both  feet  on 
the  true  foundation,  that  which  appeared  to  be  a  disadvan- 
tage becomes  an  advantage  and  a  force.  Then,  afler  the  ex- 
ample of  Jesus  Christ,  he  teaches  with  authority  and  no  long- 


OF  AUTHORITY.  237 

er  as  the  scribes,  (Matthew,  vii.  29  ;)  he  no  longer  looks  to 
himself  but  to  God ;  he  no  longer  opposes  man  to  man,  but 
the  majesty  of  the  divine  wisdom  to  the  countless  vacillations 
of  human  wisdom ;  divested  of  all  personal  authority,  he  is 
clothed  with  an  authority  more  elevated,  and  the  more  he  is 
abased  as  a  man,  the  more  is  he  exalted  as  a  minister.  But, 
what  is  important  to  be  observed,  he  speaks  with  faith. 
Ponder  this  well.  The  lawyer,  the  panegyrist,  the  statesman 
may  speak  with  faith ;  a  firm  assurance,  a  vivid  conviction,  is 
not  naturally  beyond  their  reach ;  but  in  speaking  of  moral- 
ity and  religion,  faith  is  scarcely  possible  in  ordinary  and 
natural  circumstances ;  there  are  few  things  in  this  class  of 
ideas  which  one  can  maintain  with  entire  assurance,  and  teach 
with  sufficient  authority ;  the  spirit  of  secular  analysis  has 
so  pulverized  opinions,  has  left  so  few  beliefs  standing !  So 
small  is  the  advantage  to  be  drawn  from  reasoning,  in  re-es- 
tablishing the  moral  world  and  natural  religion!  Happy, 
then,  he  who  has  received  from  the  hand  of  God  a  solution 
which  earth  was  unable  to  give ;  an  arbitrary  solution,  but 
which  must  needs  be  arbitrary,  since  fact  has  pioved  that 
reason  cannot  find  a  natural  one.  Happy  he  who  has  found 
it !  he  has  something  to  give  to  souls ;  and  in  his  humble  re- 
liance on  revealed  truth,  he  is  really  more  independent,  is 
more  in  the  ascendant,  than  the  preacher  who  would  trust 
only  in  himself,  and  who  is  constantly  surprised  that  he  does 
not  trust  in  himself. 

We  cannot  forbear  adding  that  the  privilege  exclusively 
assured  to  the  preacher  of  occupying  the  auditory  by  him- 
self, of  having  to  combat  only  silent  adversaries,  would  be 
an  exorbitant  and  absurd  privilege,  if  the  preacher  be  not  re- 
garded as  speaking  in  the  name  of  God,  and  as  repeating  the 
oracles  of  inspired  wisdom,  in  his  developments  and  applica^ 
tions. 

2.  The  preacher  may  preach  with  much  authority,  if  to 


"^ 


238  OF  AUTHORITY. 

the  authority  of  God's  testimony  he  unites  that  which  springs 
from  experience,  since,  in  the  plan  of  Christianity,  external 
truth  is  designed  to  become  internal  truth,  revelation  an  ex- 
perience, and  since,  in  a  certain  sense,  every  man  who 
preaches  the  gospel  may  say  with  the  apostles :  "  That  which 
we  have  heard,  which  we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  which 
we  have  looked  upon,  and  our  hands  have  handled  of  the 
word  of  life  .  .  .  that  declare  we  unto  you."    (1  John,  i.  1-3.) 

3.  A  third  thing  necessary  to  preach  with  authority: 
When  the  external  life  of  the  preacher  is  sufficiently  con- 
formed to  his  preaching  to  hinder  his  words  from  being  put 
to  the  blush  by  his  actions,  and  to  leave  it  in  no  one's  power  to 
oppose  him  to  himself.  His  character  now  deposes  in  his  favor. 

4.  Fourth  condition.  When  the  more  sensible  he  is  of 
the  excellency  of  his  mission,  the  more  he  feels  his  own  vile- 
ness ;  when  he  is  seen  to  be  the  first  to  bow  his  shoulder  to 
the  burden  he  puts  upon  others ;  when  he  conceals  himself 
behind  his  mission,  when  he  puts  himself  forward  only  be- 
cause it  has  become  necessary,  when  he  shows  himself  only 
that  he  may  distinctly  unite  with  his  hearers  in  self  humilia- 
tion ;  when  he  separates  himself  from  them  neither  in  his 
thoughts  nor  words,  and  when  it  resounds  through  all  his  dis- 
course, that  he  regards  himself  as  the  chief  of  sinners  ;  in  a 
word,  when  the  authority  which  he  displays,  is  deprived  of 
every  personal  characteristic,  when  it  is  wholly  relative  to 
the  object  of  his  mission,  wholly  imbued  and  stamped  with 
the  sentiment  which  led  Saint  Paul  to  say :  "  Woe  is  unto 
me,  if  I  preach  not  the  gospel !"  (1  Corinthians,  ix.  16.) 

5.  Fifth  condition.  When  in  the  pulpit,  God  gives  him 
grace  to  forget  himself,  and  frees  him  from  the  wretched 
perturbations  of  vanity.  For,  when  the  servant  of  the  Most 
High  becomes,  through  vanity,  the  servant  of  men ;  when  at 
the  very  moment  he  announces  to  them  the  counsels  of  God, 
he  is  preoccupied  with  the  desire  of  their  approbation  ;  when 


REPKEHENSION.  289 

he  seeks  solidity,  pathos,  unction,  authority  itself,  from  the 
secret  desire  of  appearing  to  preach  with  solidity,  pathos, 
unction  and  authority,  then  descending  from  the  tribunal  to 
the  prisoner's  stool,  and  an  entire  stranger  to  that  noble  in- 
dependence which  Saint  Paul  expresses  in  the  words  :  "  It  is 
a  light  thing  with  me  to  be  judged  of  you,"  (1  Corinthians, 
iv.  3,)  he  will  in  vain  affect  the  tone  of  authority,  he  will  not 
find  it.  The  man  who  is  overawed  by  men,  was  not  made  to 
inspire  them  with  awe ;  he  who  trembles  before  them  will 
not  make  them  tremble ;  and  if  Peter  when  pronouncing  his 
first  sermon,  his  trial  sermon,  if  you  please,  had  been  pre-oo- 
cupied  with  what  concerned  himself,  and  with  the  judgment 
of  his  auditors,  he  would  not  have  heard  the  conscience- 
stricken  multitude  say  at  the  end  of  his  discourse,  "  Men  and 
brethren  what  shall  we  do  ?"  (Acts,  ii.  37.) 

6.  Finally,  to  preach  with  authority,  the  preacher  must 
give  evidence  that  he  loves  those  over  whom  his  word  has 
command. 

Reprehension.  Saint  Paul  would  have  Timothy  not  only 
exhort,  but  rebuke  with  all  authority.  We  do  not  speak  here 
of  individual  or  private  reprehension,  but  of  that  which  is 
given  in  public  preaching.  In  some  respects  it  is  more  easy 
than  the  other,  in  other  respects  it  is  less.  If  pulpit  repre- 
hension is  more  easy,  because  being  addressed  to  all  col- 
lectively, and  leaving  each  one  to  do  his  own  part,  it  does  not 
so  much  irritate  individual  sensitiveness,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  publicity,  the  solemnity,  the  small  space  which  is  at  his 
disposal  in  preaching,  makes  this  part  of  the  preacher's  work 
delicate  and  perilous.  He  caimot,  as  in  a  private  interview, 
avail  himself  of  interlocution,  by  which  he  learns  the  nature 
and  extent  of  the  impressions  he  produces,  and  is  led  to 
modify,  to  explain,  and  to  shade  his  thoughts  as  he  may  find 
necessary,  in  a  word,  to  adjust  his  discourse,  not  only  to  the 


240  EEPREHENSION. 

individual  character  of  the  person  to  whom  he  speaks,  but  to 
all  the  successive  movements  of  his  soul.  Collective  reprehen- 
sion, as  it  must  always  confine  itself  to  a  certain  medium, 
which  would  be  false  if  it  included  the  representation  of  any 
individual's  personal  state,  is  always  in  danger  of  being 
feeble  or  exaggerated,  and  is  with  great  difficulty  hindered 
from  being  vague  and  arbitrary.  And,  meanwhile,  the 
preacher  cannot  be  exempted,  cannot  be  permitted  to  with- 
draw himself  from  this  thorny  undertaking  by  reproving  the 
vices  or  faults  which  are  common  to  his  own  and  other 
parishes,  and  which  are  chargeable  to  humanity  in  general. 
A  true  pastor  knows  his  flock,  and  cannot  keep  silence  as  to 
the  particular  evils  of  that  flock.  We  do  not  see  why  a  man 
authorized  to  ascend  the  pulpit  in  a  certain  locality  called  a 
parish,  a  man  set  to  defend  the  morality  of  a  people,  may 
not  do  what  a  private  person  does  with  entire  propriety, 
what  writers  and  orators  of  all  times  have  done,  whose  zeal 
held  the  place  of  a  commission.  Only  let  me  say,  that  inde- 
pendently-  of  the  counsels  and  suggestions  of  prudence  and 
discretion  given  by  Christianity,  the  solemnity  of  temples, 
the  very  authority  with  which  the  pastor  is  clothed,  his 
official  position,  his  privilege  also  of  speaking  without  being 
liable  to  contradiction  or  interruption,  imperatively  require 
of  him  the  most  severe  thoughtfulness  as  to  his  words. 
What  is  public  preaching  but  the  last  alternative  of  in- 
dividual preaching,  which  alone  is  thoroughly  direct  and 
penetrating  1  Of  what  use  is  public  preaching  if  it  may  not, 
to  a  certain  extent,  individualize  each  one  of  those  who  hear 
it "?  And  why,  while  attacking  evils  less  general  than  those 
which  present  themselves  to  an  observer  of  general  humanity, 
should  it  not  avail  itself  of  all  possible  means  of  rendering 
itself  direct] 

Admitting,  then,  that   a  good   christian  discourse  must 
be  useful  and  applicable  out  of  the  parish  for  which  it  was 


EEPEEHENSION.  241 

made,  since  all  preaching  for  substance,  relates  to  the  funda- 
mental traits  of  human  nature,  I  think  it  ought  be  required 
that  each  pastor's  preaching  should  have  the  unquestionable 
stamp  of  the  place  and  circumstances  in  which  he  exercises 
his  ministry.  It  is  true  that  this  kind  of  individuality  in 
preaching  has  its  local  distinctiveness  not  only  in  the  part  of 
our  discourse  which  we  give  to  reprehension,  and  that  in  all 
the  parts  of  an  attentive  and  thoughtful  minister's  preach- 
ing the  parish  is  reflected  ;  but  if  he  fully  understands  and 
accepts  his  position,  if  his  parish  is  in  his  view  a  family  of 
which  he  is  the  spiritual  father,  if  he  knows  what  is  called 
the  divine  prerogative  of  the  ministry,  he  will,  with  a  noble 
freedom,  reprove  this  parish  for  the  particular  evil  which  it 
cherishes,  or  favors,  or  tolerates.  We  are  not  to  inquire 
whether  this  freedom  will  be  favorably  regarded,  whether  it 
will  surprise,  whether  it  will  appear  excessive.  Is  it  so  ?  is 
the  question.  The  public,  perhaps,  do  not  regard  the  minis- 
try as  having  this  prerogative ;  but  the  fault,  perhaps,  is  ours, 
and  let  us  be  assured  that  what  is  just  and  according  to  the 
nature  of  things,  is  always  approved  in  the  end.  Men  seldom 
will  refuse  us  what  we  do  not  refuse  ourselves  ;  to  him  who 
hath  shall  be  given ;  and  we  most  frequently  do  wrong  in 
complaining  that  we  are  not  free,  since  to  be  free,  we  have 
only  to  will  to  be  free.  The  barriers  we  see  about  us  are 
very  often  the  effect  of  an  optical  illusion.  Let  us  advance 
as  if  they  were  not  there,  and  we  shall  find  that  they  are  not. 
The  whole  depends  on  the  point  of  view  from  which  we  con- 
template the  ministry.  The  form  is  not  prescribed ;  the 
spirit  alone  is  immutable,  and  it  is  this  spirit  of  which  we 
must  obtain  a  just  and  complete  idea. 

There  is  a  singular  fact  which  we  must  bring  into  more 

notice.     The  people,  because  it  is  their  custom,  think  well  of 

having  their  ways  examined  into  particularly,  and  sin  called 

by  its  proper  name,   as  often   at  least  as  one  day  in  the 

11 


242  REPREHENSION. 

year.*  On  that  day  the  ministers  have  their  freedom  of  speech, 
and  they  make  a  good  use  of  it ;  but,  frankly,  is  not  what  is 
good  to  be  spoken,  good  to  be  repeated  ?  And  if  it  is  import- 
ant to  each  individual  to  be  brought  truly  to  repentance,  to 
know  his  particular  sins  or  the  individual  form  of  his  misery,  is 
it  unprofitable  to  a  people  that  their  sin  should  be  declared  to 
them,  that  they  may  know  where  their  evil,  their  danger  lies, 
and  how  to  direct  their  measures  of  reform  ? 

Notwithstanding  the  difficulties  connected  with  direct  repre- 
hension, we  cannot  think  that  the  preacher  should  be  exempted 
from  it  ;  we  believe  that  it  is  a  part  of  his  office  ;  but  we  can 
sanction  or  recommend  it  only  on  the  following  conditions  : 

Let  the  preacher,  before  he  exercises  it,  be  well  acquainted 
with  his  parish,  and  let  them  also  be  well  acquainted  with  him. 

Let  him  feel  assured  that  he  has  the  esteem,  the  affection, 
and  the  confidence  of  his  parish. 

Let  the  evil  be  evident,  general,  serious,  and  such  as  calls 
for  immediate  repression. 

1  add  in  general,  though  not  absolutely,  that  this  office  will 
be  more  appropriately  performed  by  a  preacher  who,  to  the 
authority  given  him  by  knowledge,  conviction,  an  exemplary 
life,  and  his  mission  itself,  unites  the  authority  of  age. 

I  give  here  some  rules  which  I  think  the  prenchcr  should 
carefully  observe  in  his  censures.  The  first:  To  avoid 
every  kind  and  every  appearance  of  personality  ;  I  do  not 
say,  to  avoid  every  intention  of  being  personal ;  that  need  not 
be  said  ;  I  do  not  even  say,  to  avoid  what  might  lead  his 
hearers  to  make  some  personal  and  malignant  application  of 
his  words ;  that  would  be  labor  lost ;  I  mean,  that  he  must 
so  speak,  that  no  one  may,  with  any  appearance  of  reason, 
accuse  him  of  having  had  some  one  in  view,  whether  in  or 
out  of  the   auditory.     He  must,  of  course,  endeavor  to  be 

*  Alluding  to  the  character  of  the  preaching  on  the  annual  fast 
which  is  celebrated  in  the  Swiss  Churches. 


EEPREHENSION.  243 

incisive  and  penetrating,  without  having  recourse  to  the  con- 
venient and  frequent  form  of  the  portrait.  This  negative 
mode  is  not  impracticable  ;  but  the  rule  it  refers  to  is  not  so 
easy  to  be  followed  as  we  may  think,  even  though  one  has 
the  greatest  innocence  of  intention.  It  is  difficult,  perhaps 
impossible,  to  avoid  finding  about  us  some  living  type  of  the 
vice  which  we  wish  to  paint  or  censure.  The  most  ideal  crea- 
tions of  the  painter  have  had  some  individual  model  either 
to  start  from  or  rest  upon.  It  is  singular,  that  in  drawing 
from  the  individual,  one  is  sure  of  rendering  well  the  species 
or  the  genus.  There  is  perhaps  no  preacher  who,  while  occu- 
pied on  some  one  of  the  moral  miseries  of  humanity,  has 
not  had  before  him,  in  distant  view,  during  the  whole  of  his 
labor,  some  figure  well  known  to  him.  Unconsciously  to 
himself,  some  one  is  always  the  subject  from  whom  he  forms 
the  autopsy  of  the  species  ;  some  one  whom  he  does  not 
name,  whom,  perhaps,  he  does  not  suppose  he  was  thinking 
of  more  than  another,  has  been  the  scape-goat  of  the  repre- 
hension. When  it  has  been  thus,  let  us  carefully  efface  all 
signs  which  may  be  too  distinctive,  let  us  conceal  the  vicious 
man,  the  sinner,  and  let  only  the  vice,  the  sin,  remain. 

The  censure  of  certain  classes  or  certain  orders  of  society, 
may  be  chargeable  with  personality.  Our  ministry,  which 
should  always  tend  to  harmony  and  union,  ought  to  guard 
against  signalizing  one  class  to  the  hatred  and  contempt  of 
the  other  classes.  There  may  have  been  times  and  circum- 
stances in  which  this  rule  should  not  have  been  followed. 
Thus  Saint  James  rej^roached  certain  christians  with  their 
worldly  compliances,  and  their  obsequiousness  to  the  rich  by 
whom  they  were  oppressed.  I  admit,  indeed,  that  as  cer- 
tain vices  spring  from  certain  positions,  it  is  impossible 
to  speak  of  the  vices  without  speaking  of  the  positions 
which  produce  them ;  it  is  impossible  to  speak  of  the 
injustice  of   some    without    speaking  of  the    sufferings    of 


244  REPREHENSION. 

others.  But  christian  ministers,  aided  by  the  example  and 
the  spirit  of  their  adorable  master,  who  did  not  hesitate, 
explicitly  and  publicly  to  address  classes,  whom  he  excited, 
not  some  against  others,  but  all  against  himself,  have  been 
able  to  succeed  admirably  in  reconciling  frankness  with  pru- 
dence. The  christian  spirit,  in  its  stern  frankness,  has  never 
propagated  hatred  nor  kmdled  resentments.  Simplicity  very 
often  does  the  office  of  prudence,  but  it  does  not  ^also  affect  to 
despise  prudence.  I  think  it  must  be  only  at  the  last  ex- 
tremity and  under  the  impulse  of  the  most  powerful  motives 
that  a  christian  minister  would  permit,  or  rather  force  him- 
self to  speak  like  Pere  Bridaine  in  this  celebrated  and  often 
cited  exordium  : 

"  In  view  of  an  auditory  so  new  to  me,  it  seems,  my 
brethren,  that  I  ought  not  to  open  my  mouth,  except  to  ask 
your  indulgence  to  a  poor  missionary,  destitute  of  all  the 
fodents  which  you  require  of  one  who  comes  to  speak  to  you 
of  your  salvation.  I  have  to-day,  however,  a  very  different 
sentiment,  and  if  I  feel  humbled,  yet  think  not  that  I  am 
subject  to  the  miserable  agitations  of  vanity,  as  if  I  were  ac- 
customed to  preach  myself.  God  forbid  that  a  minister  of 
Heaven  should  ever  think  that  he  needs  to  excuse  himself  to 
you.  For  whoever  you  may  be,  in  the  judgment  of  God  you 
are  all  sinners  like  myself  It  is  then  only  before  your  God 
and  mine  that  I  am  constrained  at  this  moment  to  smite  upon 
my  breast.  Until  now  I  have  proclaimed  the  judgments  of 
the  Most  High  in  temples  covered  with  thatch.  I  have 
preached  the  austerities  of  penitence  to  unfortunate  persons 
for  the  most  part  destitute  of  bread.  I  have  announced  the 
terrors  of  my  religion  to  the  good  inhabitants  of  the  country. 
What  have  I  done  1  Miserable  man,  I  have  made  sad  the 
poor,  the  best  friends  of  my  God.  I  have  filled  with  fear  and 
sorrow,  simple  and  faithful  souls  whom  I  ought  to  have  pitied 
and  consoled !     It  is  here,  where  I  see  before  me  the  great, 


EEPREHEKSION.  245 

the  rich,  the  oppressors  of  suffering  humanity,  or  daring  and 
hardened  sinners ;  ah !  it  is  here  alone,  amidst  so  many 
scandals,  that  the  holy  word  should  be  sounded  in  all  the  force 
of  its  thunder,  and  that  I  should  place  with  myself  in  this 
pulpit,  on  the  one  side  death  which  threatens  you,  and  on 
the  other  my  great  God  who  is  to  judge  you  all.  Already, 
at  this  moment,  I  hold  your  sentence  in  my  hand.  Tremble 
then  in  my  presence,  ye  proud  and  scornful  men  who  hear 
me.  The  ungrateful  abuse  of  all  the  forms  of  grace, 
the  necessity  of  salvation,  the  certainty  of  death,  the  uncer- 
tainty of  that  hour  to  you  so  dreadful,  final  impenitence,  the 
last  judgment,  the  small  number  of  the  elect,  hell,  and  above 
all  eternity !  eternity  !  these  are  the  subjects  on  which  I  come 
to  discourse,  and  which  doubtless  I  should  have  reserved  for 
you  alone.  Ah !  what  need  have  I  of  your  commendation, 
who  would  perhaps  condemn  me  without  saving  yourselves. 
God  is  about  to  move  you,  while  his  unworthy  servant  ad- 
dresses you ;  for  I  have  long  had  experience  of  his  mercies. 
It  is  himself,  it  is  he  alone,  who  for  a  few  moments  is  about 
to  stir  your  conscience  to  its  depths.  Smitten  with  sudden 
alarm,  filled  with  horror  at  your  past  iniquities,  while  shedding 
the  tears  of  compunction  and  repentance,  you  will  come  to 
throw  yourselves  into  the  arms  of  my  charity,  and  under  the 
power  of  remorse,  you  will  confess  me  sufficiently  eloquent." 
In  the  second  place,  I  would  have  reprehension  whether  in 
the  pulpit  or  in  private,  frank  and  direct,  never  in  the  form 
of  an  oblique  allusion.  An  allusion  is  understood  or  it  is 
not.  If  it  is  not,  the  object  is  not  gained ;  if  it  is, 
both  the  intention  of  the  preacher  and  his  timidity  are 
discovered,  and  the  question  arises,  why  did  he  fear  to 
be  explicit  ?  If  it  is  found  that  fear  was  not  his  reason, 
he  is  on  that  account  less  respected ;  if  the  censure  thus 
veiled  is  of  a  grave  nature,  it  appears  yet  more  grave,  and 
the  motive  of  it  is  exaggerated,  when  it  is  seen  with  what 


EEPEEHE]SrSIO]Sr. 

care  the  preacher  thought  it  necessary  to  blunt  its  pomt ;  he 
is  thought  to  have  had  a  bad  design  equally  in  what  he  said 
and  in  what  he  did  not  dare  to  say ;  the  feeling  I  admit  is 
more  vivid,  but  the  dart  thrown  by  fear  is  drawn  out  and 
cast  far  away.  Let  me  not  however  be  here  understood, 
as  by  any  means  disapproving  the  attentions  of  courtesy,  or 
the  cautions  and  artifices  of  charity.  The  dullest  in  the  au- 
ditory can  readily  distinguish  between  delicacy  and  timidity. 
Finally,  let  the  preacher,  when  he  thinks  himself  called  to 
censure  the  conduct  of  his  flock,  remember  that  "  The  wrath 
of  man  w^orketh  not  the  righteousness  of  God,"  (James,  i. 
20 ;)  and  "  that  the  fruit  of  righteousness  is  sown  in  peace." 
(James,  iii.  18.)  This  deserves  the  attention  especially  of 
the  young  preacher.  The  just  portion  of  sin  and  its  earthly 
inheritance,  we  know,  is  hatred  and  derision  ;  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  love  good  without  hating  evil ;  but  it  is  very  possi- 
ble and  too  common,  to  hate  evil  without  loving  good.  This 
hatred  without  love,  most  certainly,  is  not  that  "  perfect  ha- 
tred "  which  the  royal  prophet  had  vowed  against  the  enemies 
of  his  God ;  it  is  mixed  with  impure  elements ;  but  never- 
theless, we  cannot  say  that  it  is  not  hatred  of  evil,  for  evil  is 
hateful  to  such  a  degree,  and  in  so  many  respects,  and  is  so 
contrary  to  our  nature,  that  the  wicked  themselves  hate  it. 
But  to  be  worthy  of  Christianity,  worthy  of  the  pulpit,  ha- 
tred must  be  sanctified,  and,  so  to  speak,  steeped  in  love. 
The  impatience  or  vexation  which  wc  feel  toward  sin,  we  may 
easily  mistake  for  zeal ;  the  ill-natured  pleasure  we  take  in 
blaming  and  condemning,  we  may  regard  as  a  holy  grief; 
and  more  than  one  preacher,  if  he  had  not  been  a  preacher, 
would  have  been  a  satirical  poet.  There  is  great  pleasure  in 
censuring,  and  the  profession  which  seems  to  make  this 
pleasure  our  duty,  offers  temptation  to  it,  to  minds  of  a  se- 
vere and  saturnine  character.  Let  the  minister  mistrust  this 
temptation ;  let  him  fear  the  exaggerated  and  declamatory 


IRONY.  247 

emphasis  which  orators  are  accustomed  to  bestow  on  sub- 
jects of  this  kind,  lest  while  censuring  with  authority,  he 
follow  his  own  impressions  more  than  the  counsels  and 
inspirations  of  the  Word  of  God. — Above  all,  let  him  be- 
ware of  irony.  Irony  in  the  pulpit,  as  well  as  in  private  con- 
versation, most  frequently  produces  fruitless  mortification, 
and  nothing  is  more  contrary  to  unction.  I  would  not  abso- 
lutely forbid  it ;  sometimes  it  is  not  to  be  avoided ;  it  is  a 
means  of  severe  correction,  and  among  other  offices  of  preach- 
ing, correction  has  a  place.  When  our  Lord  said  to  the  Jews 
who  were  about  to  stone  him,  "  I  have  done  many  good 
works  among  you,  for  which  do  you  stone  me  V  (John,  x. 
32,)  he  spoke  ironically,  but  how  appropriately,  how  noble 
and  worthy  of  Him !  The  famous  irony  of  Boileau,  in  his 
imitation  of  the  Tenth  Provincial,  was  but  the  natural  form  of 
a  reductio  ad  absurdum,  which,  on  such  a  subject,  and  against 
such  errors,  was  almost  the  only  possible  way  of  reasoning. 

Au  siijet  d'un  ecrit  qu'on  nous  venait  de  lire 

Un  d'  entre  eiix  m'insnlte  sur  ee  que  j'osai  dire 

Qu'il  faut,  pour  etre  absous  d'uu  crime  confesse, 

Avoir  pour  Dieu  du  moins  un  amour  commence. 

Ce  dogme,  me  dit-il,  est  un  pur  Calvinisme, 

O  Ciel!  me  voila,  done  dans  I'erreur,  dans  le  schisme, 

Et  partant  reprouvel     Mais,  poursuivis-je,  ^lors, 

Quand  Dieu  viendra  juger  les  vivants  et  les  morts, 

Et  des  humbles  agneaux,  objets  de  sa  tendresse. 

Separera  des  boucs  la  troupe  pecheresse, 

A  tons  il  nous  dira,  severe  ou  graeieux, 

Ce  qui  nous  fit  impurs  ou  justes  a  ses  yeux. 

Selon  vous,  done,  a  moi  reprouve,  boue  infame : 

Va  bruler,  dira-t-il,  en  I'eternelle  flamme, 

Malheureux  qui  soutins  que  I'homme  dut  m' aimer ; 

Et  qui,  sur  ee  sujet,  trop  prompt  a  declamer, 

Pretendis  qu'il  fallait,  pour  fleehir  ma  justice 

Que  le  pecheur,  touche  de  I'horreur  de  son  vice, 

De  quelque  ardeur  pour  moi,  sentit  les  mouvements, 

Et  gardat  le  premier  de  mes  commandements !  , 


248  lEONY. 

Dieu,  si  je  vous  en  crois,  me  tiendra  ce  langage ; 

Mais  a  vous,  tendre  agneau,  son  plus  cher  heritage, 

Orthodoxe  ennemi  d'un  dogme  si  blame, 

Venez,  vous  dira-t-il,  venez,  mon  bien  aime ; 

Vous  qui,  dans  le  detours  de  vos  raisons  subtiles, 

Embarassaut  les  mots  d'un  des  plus  saint  couciles, 

Avez  delivre  I'homme,  6  I'utile  docteur ! 

De  I'importune  fardeau  d' aimer  son  Createur ; 

Entrez  an  ciel,  venez,  comble  de  mes  louanges, 

Du  besoin  d'aimer  Dieu  des  abuser  les  anges. 

A  de  tels  mots,  si  Dieu  pouvait  les  prononeer, 

Pour  moi  je  repondrais,  je  crois,  sans  I'offenser, 

Oh !  que  pour  vous,  mon  coeur,  moins  dur  et  moins  farouche, 

Seigneur,  n'a-t-il,  helas !  parle  comme  ma  bouche !  * 


*  BoiLEAU,  Epitre  xii.,  sur  ramotir  de  Dieu,  at  the  end. 
"  A  piece  had  just  been  read ;  one  of  their  number 
Insulted  me  because  I  dared  to  say, 
A  crime  confessed,  in  order  to  be  pardoned, 
By  love  to  God,  in  its  first  stage,  at  least. 
Should  be  preceded.     Purest  Calvinism 
The  doctrine  was  pronounced.     Heavens !  I  exclaimed, 
Then  I'm  a  heretic ;  then  into  schism 
I  've  fallen,  and  am,  of  course,  convicted. 
But,  I  subjoined :  "When  God  shall  come  to  judge 
The  living  and  the  dead,  and  separate 
His  humble  lambs,  the  objects  of  his  pity. 
From  the  vile  herd  of  goats.  He  will  declare, 
With  justice  or  with  grace,  what  in  His  sight, 
Makes  us  impure  or  just.     If  you  are  right, 
He  will,  on  me,  adjudged  a  guilty  goat. 
Pronounce  this  fearful  sentence :  Go,  thou  vile 
Peprobate,  burn  in  fire  eternal ;  wretch 
Who  didst  maintain  that  man  Me  ought  to  love, 
And  much  too  earnest  on  this  point,  to  insist, 
Did'st  liold,  that  righteous  vengeance  to  escape, 
The  sinner  touched  with  horror  of  liis  guilt. 
Some  sentiment  of  love  toward  Me  should  feel. 
And  of  my  law,  the  fifst  command  should  keep. 


INDIGNATION.  249 

This  passage,  which  would  not  misbecome  the  pulpit  if  it 
had  to  treat  the  question  of  the  tenth  Provincial,  this  passage 
and  others  which  the  pulpit  itself,  perhaps,  might  furnish,  do 
not  hinder  us  from  thinking  that  irony  in  general,  does  not 
agree  with  the  character  of  evangelical  eloquence  ;  together 
with  invective,  it  must,  I  think  be  left,  I  will  not  say  to  profane, 
but  to  pagan  eloquence,  since  a  Christian  lawyer  or  publicist 
should  follow  here  no  other  maxims  than  the  preachers. 

But,  after  all,  let  us  say,  that  a  holy  vehemence  has  a  place 
amongst  the  most  apj)roved  forms  of  religious  eloquence. 
Indignation,  the  wrath  of  conscience,  is  as  worthy  of  the 
Christian  as  wrath  is  unworthy.  The  love  of  good,  we  have 
said,  implies  the  hatred  of  evil  ;  and  why,  if  love  has  its 
outpourings  and  its  transports,  should  hatred  be  without  its 
own  ?  Why  should  we  excite  them  if  we  may  not  venture 
to  express  them  ?  Did  not  the  prophets,  the  apostles,  Jesus 
Christ  himself,  give  a  free  range  to  the  grief  and  pious  wrath 
with  which  their  souls  was  filled.  It  is  with  godly  wrath  as 
with  lightning  that  flashes  in  a  blue  sky  ;  this  wrath  does  not 
interrupt  or  disturb  the  serenity  of  the  soul  ;  it  is   not  op- 

If  you  I  must  believe,  this  language  God 
To  me  will  hold.     But  to  you,  tender  lamb, 
His  dearest  heritage,  orthodox  enemy 
Of  doctrine  hateful,  these  will  be  His  words: 
Come,  well-beloved,  you  who  in  the  maze 
Of  subtile  arguments,  embarrassing  decrees 
Of  Holiest  Councils,  man  has  delivered 
From  the  great  burden  of  loviug  his  maker, 
Come,  enter  heaven,  with  my  praises  loaded. 
And  teach  the  angels  Me  they  need  not  love. 
To  words  like  these,  if  God  pronounce  them  should, 
I,  for  myself,  might  answer,  so  I  think, 
Without  offending  Him:  Alas!  0  Lord, 
Has  not  my  heart,  less  hard,  less  merciless, 
Spoken  for  Thee  as  truly  as  my  mouth  ?" — ^Tr. 
11* 


250  INTDIGNATION-. 

posed  to  charity  ;  on  the  contrary,  charity  is  defective  if  it 
does  not  feel  and  express  it.  "  Faithful  are  the  wounds  of  a 
friend,"  (Proverbs,  xxvii.  6.)  Let  us  remember  that  our 
reprobation  of  evil  and  of  sm  cannot  be  comprehended  if 
we  appear  to  be  unmoved  by  them,  and  that  hatred,  tran- 
quilly worded,  is  no  more  confided  in,  than  love  coldly  ex- 
pressed. We  are  not,  we  cannot  be  on  terms  of  politeness 
with  sin — Saint  Paul,  as  it  seems  to  me,  did  not  so  under- 
stand it.  We  might  be  charged  with  rashness  and  violence 
by  certain  persons  if  we  should  repeat  some  of  his  apostro- 
phes. Without  meriting  the  reproach  let  us  not  fear  to  incur 
it.  The  Lord,  who  will  keep  the  door  of  our  lips,  will  doubt- 
less permit  the  truth  to  pass  through  it ;  and  truth  consists 
in  feeling  as  well  as  in  thought ;  love  is  truth ;  hatred  of 
course,  and  if  needs  be,  wrath  itself,  also.  But,  O  Lord  and 
Saviour,  give  us  to  love  as  thou  lovest,  to  hate  as  thou  hatest, 
and  to  reprove  as  thou  reprovest. 


i 


RESUME 
OF   THE   FIRST    PART. 

Having  finished  the  first  part  of  this  course,  I  would  meas- 
ure with  you,  gentlemen,  the  space  we  have  gone  over,  take 
the  sum  of  the  ideas  we  have  collected  and  the  convictions 
we  have  obtained.  We  shall  have  occasion,  hereafter,  in  the 
sequel  of  this  course,  to  show  that  an  exact  and  concise  Re- 
sume assists  the  mmd  just  as  the  reaper  is  assisted  in  carry- 
ing his  sheaf  by  the  osier-band,  which  surrounds  and  com- 
presses it.  Let  us  apply,  beforehand,  what  we  are,  by-and- 
bye,  to  teach.  We  have  also,  I  hope,  a  sheaf  to  carry,  let  us 
bind  it  as  well  as  we  can. 

The  Christian  religion  has  the  form  of  a  word.  The  Di- 
vine Being,  who  has  established  this  religion  on  the  earth  and 
in  our  hearts,  is  the  Word  himself,  and  here  this  term  Word 
signifies  thought,  reason,  the  truth  conceived  as  well  as  the 
truth  expressed.  By  the  Word  the  visible  world  was  made  ; 
the  Word  also  created  the  spiritual  world,  with  this  diflerence, 
that  the  Word  acts  from  without  on  the  visible  world,  while 
it  produces  the  spiritual  world  from  within.  In  regard  to 
the  visible  world,  God  speaks  from  himself ;  but  he  speaks 
to  the  spiritual  world  ;  nay  more  :  the  Word  creates  the  visi- 
ble world  which  does  not  speak;  the  Word  creates  the 
spiritual  world  by  making  it  speak ;  speak,  I  mean,  internally, 
that  is  to  say,  think,  and  think  externally,  that  is  to  say, 
speak.  Christianity  is  a  religion  which  is  spoken  and  which 
should  be  thought. 

To  think  and  not  to  dream ;  to  tliink  with  the  heart  the 
conscience  and  the  understanding ;  to  think,  that  is  to  say,  to 
know  and  to  believe ;  to  think,  that  is  to  say,  to  act  and  live, 


252  RESUME   OF  THE   FIRST  PART. 

consequently  to  sj^eah,  .and  not  to  stammer,  as  all  human  re. 
ligions  have  done,  this  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  Chris- 
tianity, one  of  its  titles  of  honor.  The  minister  of  this  relig- 
ion then  is  the  communicator  and  interpreter  of  a  thought ; 
whatever  may  be  the  speciality  and  the  form  of  his  ministry, 
he  is  the  minister  of  a  word.  This  minister  speaks,  that  is  to 
say,  he  thinks.  The  minister  is  a  man  who  thinks  Christiani- 
ty, and  who  endeavors  to  have  it  thought ;  for,  once  more, 
Christianity  seeks  to  be  thought.  Hence,  among  other 
reasons,  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  alone  among  all  relig- 
ions, has  founded  a  church.  Tlie  idea  of  the  church  and  that 
of  the  word  are  correlative. 

This  word  of  which  the  origin  is  divine,  and  of  which  the 
materials  are  divine,  is  a  human  word.  It  is  subject  to  the 
same  laws  as  every  other  word.  It  receives  laws,  it  is  true, 
from  its  peculiar  object ;  but  in  these  even,  it  follows  the  gen- 
eral rules  of  eloquence.  These  particular  rules  no  more  separ- 
ate it  from  the  common  sphere  of  eloquence  than  they  do  the  bar 
or  the  senate  on  account  of  the  special  nature  of  their  object. 
Homiletics  is  only  rhetoric  applied  to  sacred  discourse. 

In  Homiletics  as  in  rhetoric,  we  must  begin  with  a  just 
notion  of  eloquence.  This  notion  appears  to  us  to  include 
two  elements.  One  subjective,  which  is  but  the  power  of 
persuading ;  the  other  objective,  which  is  moral  truth  or 
goodness.  It  is  not,  in  fact,  we  who  are  eloquent,  but  the 
truth ;  to  be  eloquent,  is  not  to  add  something  to  the  truth, 
it  is  to  render  to  it  its  own ;  it  is  to  put  it  in  possession  of 
all  its  natural  advantages ;  it  is  to  remove  the  veils  which 
cover  it ;  it  is  to  leave  nothing  between  man  and  the  truth. 
We  may  be  eloquent  in  a  bad  cause,  but  never  without  giv- 
ing to  evil  the  appearance  of  good.  Eloquence  dies  in  an 
infected  air. 

But  eloquence  leaves  pure  speculation  to  philosophy,  pure 
contemplation  to  poetry ;  it  strengthens  and  embellishes  it- 


RESUME   OF  THE   FIEST  PART.  253 

self,  by  profitable  intercourse  with  them,  but  it  tends  to  ac- 
tion. Action  is  its  very  essence.  Eloquence  does  not  imi- 
tate, it  acts.  The  drama  of  the  poets  is  but  the  representa- 
tion of  the  thousand  dramas  of  which  life  is  formed ;  pul^lic 
discourse  is  a  real  drama  which  has  its  plot,  its  incidents,  its 
catastrophe.  This  catastrophe  is  the  determination  or  con- 
version of  the  will.  Poetry  even  when  it  simulates  action, 
moves  in  the  region  of  ideas  ;  eloquence  has  life  for  its  mat- 
ter and  life  for  its  object.  It  dies  as  we  have  said  in  a  cor- 
rupted atmosphere,  but  it  also  dies  in  an  air  too  rarified. 

This  character,  however,  and  consequently  the  oratorical 
element,  is  less  prominent  in  the  pulpit,  where  teaching  has 
place  more  than  elsewhere.  Teaching  indeed  is  the  first  end 
of  ecclesiastical  discourse.  The  eloquence  of  the  pulpit  is 
called  preaching^  that  is  to  say,  public  teaching.  To  require 
preaching  to  be  oratorical  in  the  same  degree  and  manner  as 
the  tribune,  would  be  to  change  and  pervert  the  mission  of 
the  pastor.  But  this  teaching,  most  certainly,  may  and 
should  be  eloquent. 

Is  this  art  itself,  the  art  of  teaching  eloquently,  a  thing 
which  may  be  taught?  The  idea  is  opposed  by  reasons 
drawn  from  religion.  But  since  eloquence  consists  essential- 
ly in  putting  the  truth  into  its  full  light,  since  art  and  artifice 
are  not  the  same  thing,  since  art  has  the  same  relation  to  na- 
ture as  civilization,  since  in  instinct,  even,  to  which  some 
would  reduce  us,  there  is  the  beginning  of  art,  since  art  is 
but  instinct  itself  matured  and  developed  by  reflection,  final- 
ly, since  it  is  as  proper,  or  rather  as  obligatory  to  observe 
and  regulate  our  words  (which  are  actions)  as  to  observe  and 
regulate  our  actions;,  properly  so-called,  our  design  is  fully 
justified,  unless  we  would  give  to  truth  the  strange  advice 
to  disarm,  while  error  and  sin  remain  equipt  for  war.  Now 
we  must  leave  the  weapons  we  are  to  use,  we  must  leave 
the  mode  of  using  them,  we  must  familiarize  them,  to  him  by 


254  EiSUME   OF  THE   FIEST  PAKT. 

whom  they  are  to  be  borne.  This  is  the  object  of  Homilet- 
ics.  Let  us  take  care  that  scruples  of  conscience  do  not  be- 
come pretexts  of  indolence  and  an  excuse  for  levity. 

But  though  Homiletics  are  something,  they  certainly  are 
not  everything  ;  they  are  a  substitute  neither  for  conviction, 
nor  zeal,  nor  talent,  nor  knowledge,  nor  the  study  of  models. 
To  hear  a  course  of  Homiletics  is  nothing  less  than  to  prac- 
tice Homiletics ;  to  a  certain  extent  each  one  must  teach 
himself;  we  know  well  only  what  we  have  learnt  of  our- 
selves. A  course  given,  is  not  necessarily  a  course  received ; 
learning  is  a  fact  of  the  will ;  learning  is  taking,  it  is  even 
creating. 

The  whole  of  art,  say  the  ancient  rhetoricians,  consists  in 
inventing,  disposing,  expressing ;  this  is  the  whole  of  art,  re- 
peat the  moderns.  We  pretend  to  no  improvement.  These 
three  operations  comprise  the  whole  of  art,  and  they  are  in- 
deed three  operations.  We  cannot  better  express  ourselves 
than  in  terms  borrowed  from  the  art  of  architecture  •  matter, 
structure,  style. 
y  Invention  is  the  only  object  of  this  First  Part. 

The  act  of  invention,  which  is  common  to  all  the  operations 
of  art,  (for  we  invent  our  plan,  we  invent  our  style,)  is,  at 
bottom,  a  great  mystery.  Invention  is  talent  itself.  We  do 
not  teach  talent ;  we  give  to  him  who  hath,  not  to  him  who 
hath  not.  To  the  inventive  mind  (and  what  is  mind  wholly 
destitute  of  invention  ?)  there  are  means  of  inventing  more, 
and  of  inventing  better.  The  first  point  is  to  know.  If 
knowledge  does  not  give  originality,  it  increases  and  nour- 
ishes it.  Know  man  then  :  know  life,  know  the  divine  word, 
know  yourself;  know  everything  if  you  can ;  all  truth  tends 
to  the  Supreme  truth  ;  all  truth  may  serve  it  in  the  way  of 
proof  or  illustration.  Next  unite  yourself  to  your  subject 
by  intense  meditation  ;  warm  it  with  your  own  heat  ;  warm 
yourselves  with  heat  from  your  subject ;  let  your  subject  be 


RESUME   OF  THE   FIRST   PART.  255 

a  reality  to  you,  and  the  preparation  of  the  discourse  an 
epoch  in  your  history  ;  think  not  only  but  live  ;  try  on  your 
soul  the  same  ideas  by  which  you  would  influence  the  souls 
of  others.  Do  one  thing  more  :  analyze  according  to  the 
laws  of  a  sound  logic,  the  matter  which  you  have  before  you. 
Having  put  yourselves  by  meditation  into  contact  with  the 
things  themselves,  now  put  yourselves  by  analysis  into  con- 
tact with  their  idea  ;  having  applied  the  logic  of  the  soul  in 
this  study,  now  apply  that  of  the  mind.  Inventing  is  find- 
ing ;  the  same  faculty  of  reasoning  which  you  are  presently 
to  employ  in  proving,  employ  at  the  outset  in  finding.  Such 
are  the  instruments  of  invention ;  make  frequent  use  of 
them  ;  study,  meditate,  analyze  much  ;  sharpen,  by  repeated 
efforts,  the  edge  bf  invention,  which,  rust  without  them,  will 
soon  render  dull ;  be  not  in  haste  to  recur  to  that  bank,  if 
we  may  call  it  so,  of  superficial  minds,  that  stock  of  common- 
places which  are  not  contemptible,  which  have  rendered 
service  to  every  one,  but  of  which  the  injudicious  use  has 
led  talent  to  neglect  its  own  resources.  Have  method,  rather 
than  a  method. 

Directions  relating  to  the  choice  of  materials  are  essen- 
tially embraced  in  that  rubrick  of  invention  which  we  have 
given  in  the  first  part  of  our  course.  But  here  appear  two 
characteristics  of  the  eloquence  of  temples  ;  the  first  is  this  : 
Although,  taken  as  a  whole,  preaching  is  a  business-matter, 
each  sermon  is  not  one.  Preaching  is  not  actual  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  the  discourse  of  the  bar  or  the  senate  is  so  ; 
it  does  not  spring  from  an  accidental  fact,  it  is  entirely  spon- 
taneous ;  that  is  to  say,  gentlemen,  it  chooses  its  subjects. 
The  other  characteristic  is  this  :  Not  only  is  preaching  con- 
nected with  a  document,  (as  also  is  judicial  eloquence  when 
it  appeals  to  the  law,  and  political  eloquence  when  it  refers 
to  the  constitution  of  the  country,)  but  it  consists  essentially 
in   unfolding   this  document,  it  flows  from   it   as  from  its 


256  RESUME   OF  THE  FIRST  PART. 

source ;  the  document  is  its  object,  whence  results,  not 
necessarily,  but  naturally,  the  usage  of  preaching  from  a 
text.  Before  touching  then  the  matter  itself  or  the  sub- 
stance of  the  discourse,  Homiletics,  treat  of  the  choice  of  sub- 
jects and  the  choice  of  texts. 

Must  we  choose  exclusively  between  subjects  and  texts  *? 
Since  the  sermon  is  connected  with  a  text  is  not  the  preacher 
restricted  to  the  selection  of  the  subject,  contained  in  the  text  ? 
And  is  he  not  excluded  from  subjects^  properly  so  called  1 
This  question  led  us  to  the  examination  of  the  custom  which 
has  become  a  law,  of  retaining  a  sermon  under  the  control 
of  a  biblical  passage.  While  maintaining,  for  reasons  which 
we  have  seriously  examined,  the  usage  or  law  in  question, 
we  have  not  thought  that  it  should  be  adhei'ed  to,  to  the  abso- 
lute exclusion  of  subjects  as  subjects.  Hence,  apart  from 
the  text,  we  have  spoken  of  the  subject,  the  choice  of  which 
we  subjected  to  two  rules  ;  one  relating  to  unity,  the  other 
to  interest.  After  having  determined  the  idea  and  shown 
the  importance  of  unity,  after  remarking  that  every  discourse 
should  be  reduced  to  the  terms  of  a  simple  imperative  pro- 
position, we  enumerated  the  different  forms  under  which  this 
unity  produces  itself,  or  is  sometimes  disguised.  As  to  the 
interest  of  subjects,  we  determined  that  it  should  be  at  the 
same  time  human  and  christian,  and  we  thought  to  give 
a  sure  direction  to  preaching  by  urging  that  the  just  effect  of 
the  Gospel,  the  effect  which  preaching  reproduces  and  seeks 
to  realize,  is  to  engraft  divine  sentiments  on  a  human  nature. 
We  saw  that  in  this  sphere,  as  in  that  of  life  itself,  liberty  is 
proportioned  to  submission,  and  that  to  the  truly  christian 
preacher,  as  wc;ll  as  to  truly  spiritual  christians,  it  has  been 
said :  "  All  things  are  yours,  and  you  are  Christ's,  and 
Christ  is  God's."  (1  Corinthians,  iii.  22.)  But  inexpe- 
rience may  misapprehend  this  liberty,  the  narrow  way  is 
best  suited  to  youth ;  and.  at  no  age  should  one  ascend  the 


EESUME   OF  THE  FIEST  PAET.  257 

pulpit  to  speak  of  everything  in  a  christian  manner ;  Chris- 
tianity alone  is  what  is  to  be  spoken  there. 

The  text  was  now  considered.  We  said,  first  of  all,  let  it 
be  taken  in  the  specific  meaning  of  the  divine  Word ;  let  it 
be  taken  in  the  sense  in  which  that  Word  has  taken  it.  We 
were  long  occupied  with  the  application  of  this  great  rule.  The 
laws  of  a  true  and  judicious  interpretation,  successively  en- 
gaged our  attention.  From  the  verbal  or  external  sense 
which  is  but  preparatory,  we  passed  to  the  real  or  internal 
sense,  which  is  definition ;  from  the  interpretation  of  texts 
of  the  spiritual  order,  to  that  of  texts  of  the  temporal  order, 
and  from  this  again  to  the  texts  of  a  mixed  nature,  in  which 
the  passing  world  and  the  world  of  eternity  combine  their 
elements.  After  illustrating  these  important  distinctions, 
after  considering  the  relations  and  differences  of  languages, 
of  times,  of  the  economies  of  which  the  divine  work  is  com- 
posed, we  entered  into  the  common  enclosure  of  all  kinds  of 
eloquence,  in  treating  of  the  matter  itself  or  the  contents  of 
the  sermon.  Let  it  be  farther  remembered  that  the  question 
as  to  texts  conducted  us  to  that  relating  to  the  Homily  or 
Analytical  Sermon,  and  that  we  considered  the  means  of  re- 
ducing this  excellent  kind  of  preaching  to  the  universal  and 
inflexible  law  of  unity. 

To  know  in  order  to  believe,  to  believe  in  order  to  know, 
consequently,  to  know  and  believe,  and  both  in  order  to  ac- 
tion— ^this  is  the  whole  of  religion — it  is  also  the  whole  of 
preaching.  As  to  knowledge,  it  embraces  facts,  that  is  to 
say,  what  appears  in  space  and  time,  and  ideas  which  have  a 
reality  independently  of  space  and  time.  Facts  are  described 
or  narrated.  Ideas  are  defined.  It  was  necessary  to  define 
defmition,  to  establish  the  necessity  of  it,  to  distinguish  its  di- 
verse modes,  to  show  by  what  involuntary  inclination,  or  by 
what  necessity  it  comes  under  the  laws  of  space  and  time,  while 


258  RESUME    OF   THE   FIRST   PART. 

it  returns  to  narration  or  description,  so  that  ideas  without 
date  and  without  place,  are  narrated  and  described  as  facts. 

Belief,  which  sustains  to  knowledge  the  two-fold  relation 
of  end  and  means,  since  alternately  we  must  know  in  order 
to  believe,  and  believe  in  order  to  know,  belief,  by  which  Ave 
mean  the  two-fold  assent  of  the  reason  and  the  will,  demanded 
in  its  turn  the  attention  of  Homiletics.  We  thus  passed  from 
explication  to  proof,  which  employs  reasons  when  the  object 
is  to  reach  the  understanding,  and  motives,  when  it  has  respect 
to  the  determination  of  the  will. 

Intellectual  decision,  as  differing  from  practical  decision, 
has  a  three-fold  source;  experience,  authority,  reasoning^ 
Each  of  these  means  implies  the  use  of  the  other  two ;  but 
they  ave  nevertheless  distinct  from  each  other.  It  was  our 
first  care  to  appreciate  their  respective  importance,  to  show 
the  insufficiency  of  each  in  its  isolation.  Considermg  next, 
the  two  first,  (to  wit,  experience  and  authority,)  as  materials 
of  reasoning,  and  reasoning  itself  as  the  principal  substance 
of  the  discourse,  we  attempted  to  distinguish  the  different 
forms  of  argumentation  in  oratorical  discourse,  and  especial- 
ly in  sacred  eloquence,  the  exigencies,  the  predilections,  the 
repugnancies  of  which,  we  carefully  remarked.  To  reasons 
which  produce  assurance  of  mind,  motives  succeeded  which 
decide  the  will.  A  well-founded  distinction.  Between  con- 
viction and  action,  the  connection  is  dissolved  when  there  is 
no  affection ;  affection  throws  a  bridge  over  this  chasm  which 
binds  truth  and  the  will  together.  To  speak  more  correctly, 
the  truth  becomes  itself  an  object  of  the  wnll.  All  motives 
may  be  reduced  to  two  :  Goodness  and  hapj^iness.  In  the  first 
of  these  motives  or  objects  of  affection,  we  distinguished  and 
then  reunited,  ^oo^/i^ss  in  itself  and  the  author  of  goodness ; 
we  distinguished  again,  the  two  correlative  sentiments  of  love 
and  hatred,  and  the  two  eloquences  which  correspond  to  them. 
The   appeal   which  the  gosp(^l   strongly  uuilves  to  the  love 


EESUME   OF  THE   FIRST   PAKT.  269 

of  happiness,  made  it  unnecessary  for  us  to  justify  the  use  of 
this  motive,  for  it  is  by  responding  to  this  imperious  necessi- 
ty of  all  life,  that  God  opens  our  hearts  to  the  love  of  good- 
ness. We  committed  without  hesitation,  this  honorable  and 
necessary  weapon  into  the  preacher's  hands.  The  motive  of 
happiness,  the  axis  of  human  life,  presented  to  us  the  two 
poles  of  fear  and  hope ;  fear  which  contracts  the  heart,  and 
hope  which  dilates  it ;  fear  which  is  only  a  passion,  hope 
which  may  become  a  virtue.  Around  these  two  great  ob- 
jects, goodness  and  happiness,  are  grouped  as  satellites  cer 
tain  secondary  motives  of  which  we  indicated  the  use. 

Since  it  is  true  that  the  will  camiot  be  determined  without 
an  appeal  to  affection,  it  follows  that  eloquence  cannot  attain 
its  end  without  emotion  ;  for  emotion  is  but  affection  itself  in 
the  state  of  actuality  or  temporary  excitement.  But  there  is 
an  economy  of  emotion.  We  guarded  the  moral  liberty  of 
the  hearer  and  eloquencS  itself  against  excesses.  We  also 
gave  the  lower  parts  of  the  soul  a  direction  towards  the 
higher.  We  claimed  in  behalf  of  eloquence  all  those  moral 
or  spiritual  emotions  which  stir  within  us  not  the  natural  but 
the  new  man.  Passing  in  the  conclusion,  from  the  disposi- 
tions which  are  common  to  the  orator  and  his  auditory,  since 
the  latter  receives  them  from  the  former,  to  those  which  are 
appropriate  exclusively  to  the  orator  as  such,  we  signalized 
unction  and  authority  as  two  forces  which  adjust  themselves 
to  their  one  result,  as  two  elements  of  a  complex  and  mys- 
terious nature,  without  which  preaching  falls  to  the  level  of 
ordinary  eloquence,  and  even  below  eloquence. 

This  first  part  of  our  course  contains,  if  you  will  permit  us 
this  expression,  the  chemistry  of  oratorical  discourse  ;  for 
we  have  distinguished  not  masses  or  successive  movements, 
but  the  substances  or  ingredients  of  which  religious  discourse 
is  composed.  The  second  part,  which  will  treat  of  Disposi- 
tion, will  present  in  some  sort  the  mechanism  of  eloquence  \ 


260  EESUME   OF  THE   FIRST   PART. 

but  we  shall  easily  see  in  what  strict  relation  the  two  parts 
are  to  each  other,  and  at  how  many  points  they  are  inter- 
fused. 

I  hope,  Gentlemen,  that  this  table  of  contents^  (for  it  is 
scarcely  more,)  has  presented  with  clearness  a  series  of  ideas, 
of  which,  as  separated  from  one  another  by  the  intervals  be- 
tween lectures,  and,  perhaps,  not  inserted  into  one  another 
with  sufficient  distinctness,  the  order  and  connection  may  not 
have  been  apparent  even  to  attentive  hearers. 

\ 


PART  11. 

DISPOSITION. 


CHAPTER  I. 

OF  DISPOSITION  IN  GENERAL. 

8  1.  Idea  and  importance  of  Disposition. 
I  REMIND  you,  in  the  beginning  of  this  second  part,  that 
we  did  not  in  the  first  treat  of  invention,  properly  so  called, 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  faculty  or  the  art  of  inventing,  but 
rather  of  the  nature  and  the  choice  of  the  materials  which 
enter  into  the  composition  of  the  sermon.  Invention  con- 
trols the  art  throughout,  and  is  applied  to  all  the  most  di- 
verse stages  of  the  orator's  work.  He  is  always  inventing ; 
invention  is  talent  itself;  or,  if  you  please,  all  talent  is  in- 
vention. We  shall  admit,  I  am  sure,  that  to  arrange  well 
and  write  well  is  also  to  invent.  Though  we  have  said  some- 
thing on  the  sources  and  means  of  invention,  it  was  in  pass- 
ing, and  in  a  general  manner,  without  anticipating  the  more 
numerous  and  more  particular  details  which  we  shall  give  in 
the  fourth  part  of  this  course,  of  which  the  title.  Method  of 
the  Work,  intimates  with  sufficient  plainness  the  special  ob- 
ject. * 

Hitherto,  then,  we  have  been  properly  and  exclusively  oc- 

*This  fourth  part  does  not  exist.— [Editors.] 


262  I  IDEA  OF  DISPOSITION. 

cupied  with  rules  to  be  observed  in  the  choice  of  subjects,  of 
the  text  and  the  materials.  We  have  been  giving,  in  some 
sort,  the  chemistry  of  oratorical  discourse,  since  we  have  had 
to  do  with  the  elements  or  ingredients  which  interpenetrate 
one  another ;  Disposition^  which  is  now  to  engage  us,  resem- 
bles more  the  physics  or  mechanism  of  discourse,  as  it  has 
for  its  object  the  stages  which  succeed  or  the  parts  which 
are  in  contact  with  one  another.  I  do  not,  however,  intend 
to  say  that  it  abstracts  entirely  the  inherent  nature  of  the 
materials ;  it  cannot  do  that. 

Yet  more,  we  had  in  view,  in  the  first  part,  synthetic  dis- 
course, or  the  Sermon  properly  so  called ;  not  as  though  that 
were,  in  our  opinion,  the  only  normal  form  of  pulpit  dis- 
course ;  we  made  our  reserves  in  favor  of  the  Homily  ;  but 
the  Homily  itself  aspires  to  synthesis ;  analysis  is  but  a  road 
to  reach  it,  a  road  whose  length,  whose  windings  are  de- 
termined only  by  the  nature  or  the  form  of  the  text ;  in  a 
word,  all  homily  tends  to  the  sermon,  all  homily  ends  in 
being  a  sermon ;  in  all  cases  synthesis  is  the  purpose,  the  sum- 
mit, the  very  essence  of  oratorical  discourse.  It  was,  there- 
fore, useful,  it  was  even  necessary  to  start  in  our  instruction 
with  synthesis  and  not  with  its  contrary.  Now,  to  use  other 
terms,  it  was  doubtless  better,  in  treating  of  the  sermon,  to 
tighten  a  knot  which  might  afterwards,  according  to  conve- 
nience, be  gradually  relaxed,  than  to  relax  it  at  first  and 
recommend  the  tightening  of  it  according  to  necessity.  Obe- 
dience first,  liberty  afterwards,  is  the  order.  With  this  un- 
derstanding, we  treat  of  the  sermon,  as  if  the  sermon  was 
the  only  form  of  evangelical  eloquence. 

Our  present  task  relates  to  the  disposition  of  the  materials 
which  we  procure  by  the  first  operation ;  it  relates,  in  other 
words,  to  the  construction  of  the  discourse.  Whether  you 
announce  or  do  not  announce  your  design  beforehand,  you 
have  always  a  proposition  to  establish,  a  conviction  to  pro- 


IDEA  OF  DISPOSITION.  263 

duce  in  the  souls  of  your  hearers.  I  admit  that  all  the 
ideas,  all  the  facts  you  have  collected,  incline  or  tend  to  this 
conclusion ;  I  admit  that  the  opinions  (not  to  say  convictions) 
which  are  formed  by  the  world,  result  in  respect  to  each  one, 
from  a  certain  number  of  observations,  experiences,  reflec- 
tions, which  do  not  present  themselves  to  the  mind  in  a  cer- 
tain order,  and  which  no  one,  after  the  end  is  gained,  applies 
himself  in  arranging.  Such  is,  if  I  may  so  say,  the  tumult- 
ous and  spontaneous  rhetoric  of  life.  But  you  do  not  ascend 
the  pulpit  to  do  nothing  better  than  this.  It  is  with  the  ora- 
tor as  with  the  dramatic  poet.  The  latter  does  not  find  in 
life  a  drama  such  as  those  which  he  prepares  for  the  theatre. 
To  mention  but  one  detail,  the  entrances  and  exits  are  not 
made  to  seem  natural  in  life,  as  has  to  be  done  on  the  stage. 
The  poet  submits  to  this  rule ;  he  observes  others  also.  The 
same  as  to  the  orator.  He  does  not  throw  at  random  the 
materials  of  his  proof,  even  when  they  seem  to  be  thrown  at 
random  in  life.  Chance  with  him,  moreover,  would  be  but  a 
bad  imitation  of  the  other  chance.  When  a  conviction  is 
formed  in  an  individual  or  many  individuals  at  once,  apart 
from  the  direct  influence  of  eloquence,  it  is  not  certain  that 
the  order  in  which  the  elements  of  proof  were  presented, 
grouped,  arranged,  was  of  no  importance  as  to  the  result 
which  is  obtained ;  in  the  case  given  the  apparent  disorder 
was  probably  order ;  to  which,  of  course,  the  chance  corre- 
sponded. But  in  the  composition  which  we  have  supposed 
the  chance  corresponds  to  nothing;  the  disorder  is  a  pure 
disorder.  Besides  the  element  of  time,  that  of  repetition  at 
long  intervals  is  to  be  taken  into  the  account ;  there  are  ad- 
vantages from  this,  which  compensate  the  want  of  order : 
oratorical  discourse  which  is  confined  within  the  limit  of  an 
hour  or  two,  is  entirely  deprived  of  them.  It  must  then  re- 
deem inconveniences  which  are  inherent  in  it,  by  its  own  pe- 
culiar advantages  ;  order  alone  enables  it  to  do  this.     Order 


264  IMPORTANCE   OF  DISPOSITION. 

is  the  character  of  true  discourse ;  there  is  no  discourse 
without  it.  We  know  not  how  to  name  a  composition  with- 
out order.  It  is  disposition,  it  is  order  which  constitutes  dis- 
course. 

^  The  difference  between  a  common  orator  and  an  elo- 
quent man,  is  often  nothing  but  a  difference  in  respect  to 
disposition.  Disposition  may  be  eloquent  in  itself,  and  on 
close  examination  we  shall  often  see,  that  invention  taken  by 
itself,  and  viewed  as  far  as  it  can  be  apart  from  disposition,  is 
a  comparatively  feeble  mtellectual  force.  "  Good  thoughts," 
says  Pascal,  "  are  abundant."*  The  art  of  organizing  them 
is  not  so  common.  It  requires,  sometimes,  a  greater  capacity 
to  find  the  relations  and  the  appropriate  places  of  these  or- 
ganic molecules.  Is  not  a  relation  also  an  idea,  and  a  very 
important  idea*?  There  is  then  invention  in  this,  and  La 
Bruyere  who  said  "  that  the  choice  of  thoughts  is  invention,"! 
might  have  said  the  same  thing  of  the  order  of  thought. 

I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  a  discourse  without  order 
can  produce  no  effect,  for  I  cannot  say  that  an  undisciplined 
force  is  an  absolute  nullity.  We  have  known  discourses  very 
defective  in  this  respect,  to  produce  very  great  effects.  But 
we  may  affirm  in  general,  that  other  things  being  equal,  the 
power  of  discourse  is  proportional  to  the  order  which  reigns 
in  it,  and  that  a  discourse  without  order,  (order,  be  it  remem- 
bered, is  of  more  than  one  kind,)  is  comparatively  feeble. 
A  discourse  has  all  the  power  of  which  it  is  susceptible,  only 
when  the  parts  proceeding  from  the  same  design,  are  inti- 
mately united,  exactly  adjusted,  when  they  mutually  aid  and 
sustain  one  another  like  the  stones  of  an  arch.  Tantum  se- 
ries juncturaque   polletX     This  is  so  true,  so  felt,  that  com- 

*  See  the  development  of  this  idea  in  Pascal  :  Pensees,  partie  i., 
art.  iii.,  "Rien  n'est  plus  common  que  les  bonnes  choses,"  etc. 
f  La  Bruyjeee,  Les  Caraderes,  chap,  i.,  Des  ouvrages  de  Vesprit. 
X  HoaACE,  Art  of  Poetry,  verse  242. 


IMPOKTANCE   OF  DISPOSITION.  265 

plete  disorder  is  almost  impossible,  even  to  the  most  negli- 
gent mind.  In  proportion  to  the  importance  of  the  object 
we  wish  to  attain,  or  the  difficulty  of  attaining  it,  is  our  sense 
of  the  necessity  of  order.  It  is,  I  think,  not  more  commonly 
supposed  that  a  discourse  absolutely  without  order,  is  equally 
well  suited  to  persuade,  and  especially  to  mstruct,  than  that  a 
multitude  is  a  people,  that  a  crowd  of  men  in  mail  is  an  army, 
or  that  the  confused  masses  which  Darius  drew  after  him 
were  able  to  compete  with  a  Macedonian  phalanx. 

We  should  perhaps  be  within  bounds  in  saying  that  dispo- 
sition in  a  discourse  is  not  of  more  secondary  importance 
than  the  mode  of  aggregation  of  molecules  in  a  physical  sub- 
stance ;  this  mode,  in  great  j^art,  constitutes  the  nature  of  the 
body. 

Oratorical  discourse,  and  especially  that  of  the  pulpit,  has 
a  double  purpose  :  to  instruct  and  to  persuade.  In  consider- 
ing only  the  first  of  these  objects,  we  see  that  order  is  all  im- 
portant. We  are  instructed  only  in  so  far  as  we  compre- 
hend and  retain ;  but  we  comprehend  and  retain  easily,  sure- 
ly, only  in  the  proportion  in  which  the  matters  on  which  our 
understanding  is  exercised  are  consecutive  and  connected. 
Teaching,  in  which  order  is  wanting,  hardly  deserves  the 
name  of  teaching ;  all  that  it  can  do,  is  to  give  more  or  less 
valuable  information.  And  the  inconvenience  of  disorder  in 
this  respect,  is  not  merely  negative ;  if  it  is  unhappy  not  to 
understand,  it  is  more  so  to  have  a  wrong  understanding. 
Now,  to  this  danger  does  bad  disposition  expose  our  hearer ; 
sometimes  we  teach  him  nothing ;  what  is  worse,  we  some- 
times teach  him  error ;  for  truth  which  is  not  regarded  in  its 
true  light,  in  its  proper  place,  is  changed  into  error,  and  often 
in  respect  to  the  greater  part  of  minds,  to  pernicious  error. 

Thus  as  to  instruction,  or  influence  on  the  understanding. 
It  is  impossible  that  it  should  be  otherwise  as  to  persuasion, 
or  influence  on  the  will.  A  discourse  badly  ordered  is  ob- 
12 


266  IMPOETANCE   OF  DISPOSITION. 

scure,  and  that  which  is  obscure  is  weak.  Decision  cannot 
be  conveyed  to  the  soul  of  any  one,  by  that  which  bears  the 
tremulous  impress  of  indecision.  Conceive  of  a  discourse  in 
which  the  chief  laws  of  order  are  violated,  in  which  an  idea 
is  abandoned  before  it  has  been  thoroughly  presented,  unless 
it  is  reverted  to  afterwards,  by  cutting,  perhaps,  the  thread  of 
another  idea ;  in  which  an  accessory  has  as  much  place  as  a 
principal  idea,  perhaps  more ;  in  which  the  advance  is  not 
from  the  weaker  to  the  stronger,  but  from  the  stronger  to  the 
weaker;  in  which  nothing  is  grouped,  nothing  compacted; 
in  which  everything  is  scattered,  wandering,  incoherent ;  such 
a  discourse  is  contrary  to  the  nature  of  the  human  mind,  to  its 
just  expectation,  to  its  wants ;  in  the  soul  of  the  hearer,  as  in 
the  discourse  which  is  addressed  to  him,  everything  begins,  no- 
thing is  finished ;  the  elements,  which  by  combination  would 
have  formed  a  solid  mass  (I  mean  analogous  thoughts,  homo- 
geneous sentiments),  are  kept  separate  and  at  a  distance ;  in- 
stead of  a  bright  and  burning  flame,  we  have  a  whirl  of  sparks ; 
lively  impressions  perhaps  are  produced,  but  transient  and 
soon  effaced ;  and  although  none  of  the  materials  necessary  to 
the  composition  of  an  excellent  discourse  may  be  wanting,  no 
comparison  can  be  made,  as  to  the  two-fold  purpose  of  con- 
vincing and  persuading,  between  the  work  of  which  we  are 
speaking,  and  another  in  which  perhaps  there  are  fewer  ideas, 
but  in  which  order  renders  everything  availing.  In  the  first 
case  we  had,  in  intellectual  order,  the  spectacle  of  a  great 
fortune  badly  administered,  of  an  unproductive  consumption, 
of  a  dissipation. 

We  may  appear  to  be  engaged  in  too  serious  a  work  to 
be  allowed  to  refer  here  to  the  idea  of  the  beautiful ;  but  it  is 
not  perhaps  unimportant  to  observe  that  nowhere  are  the 
beautiful  and  the  useful  so  closely  united  and  so  nearly  in- 
terblended.  The  same  thing  is,  at  once,  strength  and 
beauty. 


IMPOETANCE  OF  DISPOSITION.  267 

Ordinis  hsec  virtus  erit  et  venus,  ant  ego  fallor, 
Ut  jam  mine  dicat,  jam  nunc  debentia  dici.* 

Order  is  in  itself  beautiful,  and  everything  beautiful  in  it- 
self, is  more  beautiful  in  its  place.  Disorder  on  the  contrary 
diminishes,  discolors,  degrades  everything.  Quintilian,  then, 
when  representing  with  poetic  eloquence,  the  inconveniences 
of  disorder  in  discourse,  is  just  in  connecting  with  order  the 
two  attributes  of  beauty  and  force.  Let  us  hear  this  great  mas- 
ter :  "  Disposition  has  not  without  good  reason  been  reckoned 
the  second  of  the  five  points  I  mentioned,  the  first  being  of 
no  significancy  without  it.  If  you  cast  or  fashion  all  the 
limbs  of  a  statue,  it  will  not  be  a  statue,  unless  these  limbs 
are  properly  put  together ;  and  if  you  change  or  transpose 
any  part  of  the  human  body,  or  of  other  animals,  though  all 
other  parts  remain  in  their  due  proportion,  it  will  notwith- 
standing be  a  monster.  Dislocated  limbs  lose  the  use  of 
their  wonted  exertions,  and  actions  in  confusion  are  an  im- 
pediment to  any  just  manoeuvre.  They  are  far  I  think  from 
being  mistaken,  who  have  said,  that  the  universe  is  maintained 
by  the  order  and  symmetry  of  its  parts,  and  that  all  things 
would  perish,  if  this  order  was  disturbed.  In  like  manner  a 
speech  wanting  this  quality,  must  run  into  extreme  confusion, 
wandering  about  like  a  ship  without  a  steersman,  incoherent 
with  itself,  full  of  repetitions  and  omissions,  losing  its  way, 
as  by  night,  in  unknown  paths,  and  without  proposing  to  it- 
self any  proper  beginning  or  end,  following  rather  the  guid- 
ance of  chance  than  reason."f 

The  work  of  disposition  is  of  very  great  importance,  since 
it  completes  and  perfects,  as  we  may  well  say,  the  work  of 
invention.  We  make  invention  a  part  sui  generis,  and  inde- 
pendent :  it  is  not  so.  We  cannot,  indeed,  know  our  mate- 
rials, we  cannot  measure,  cannot  appreciate  them,  except  as 

*  Horace,  Art  of  Poetry,  verses  42,  43. 

f  Quintilian,  Lib.  vii..  Preface,  Patsall's  translation. 


268  IMPOKTANCE   OF  DISPOSITION. 

a  consequence,  and  by  means  of  this  second  labor,  which  is 
very  often  simultaneous  with  the  first.  It  has,  in  effect,  the 
three  following  results : 

1.  It  determines  and  reduces  to  strict  unity,  the  meaning 
of  the  proposition.  For  disposing  is  decomposing ;  these  two 
words  are  almost  synonymous ;  in  order,  at  least,  to  dispose 
we  must  first  decompose.  If  we  follow  in  the  process  the 
laws  of  sound  logic,  it  is  impossible  that  we  should  not  look 
more  closely  at  what  we  are  to  treat,  that  we  should  not  have 
a  better  discernment  of  what  belongs  to  it,  and  what  does 
not,  that  we  should  not  reduce  it  more  certainly  within  its 
just  limits.  How  many  orators  and  writers  have  been  un- 
able to  understand  well  the  nature  of  their  subject  until  they 
have  proceeded  to  the  arrangement  of  its  parts. 

2.  As  the  labor  of  arrangement  rests  on  a  methodical  an- 
alysis, it  not  only  excludes  and  casts  aside  what  interferes 
with  the  unity  of  the  subject,  but  aids  us  in  discovering  what 
the  subject  itself  contains.  We  see  many  things  in  it  now, 
which  we  did  not  see  before;  many  lines  are  completed, 
many  intervals  filled  up.  It  is  with  order  in  the  administra- 
tion of  a  subject,  as  with  economy  in  that  of  a  fortune — it 
enriches. 

3.  Finally,  disposition  gives  or  renders  to  each  of  the  ele- 
ments of  which  the  subject  is  composed,  its  real  importance. 
By  separating  ideas  which  at  the  first  glance  seemed  to  be 
confounded,  by  grouping  things  which  appeared  to  be  sepa- 
rate, by  attending  to  contrasts,  relations,  subjects  of  compar- 
ison, reflexions  of  light  from  one  idea  to  another,  we  give  a 
new  and  unexpected  force  to  each  of  these  ideas. 

The  small  effect  of  a  discourse  in  which  the  great  law  of 
order  has  been  neglected,  is  further  explained,  we  think,  in 
another  way.  The  orator,  we  know,  must  experience  m  him- 
self the  effect  which  he  would  produce ;  this  is  what  is  called 


IMPOETANCE   OF  DISPOSITION.  269 

inspiration.*  Now,  without  a  plan,  without  a  plan  strongly- 
conceived,  whether  slowly  meditated,  or  found  as  soon  as 
sought,  one  cannot  write  with  a  true  inspiration.  Conceive 
of  yourselves  in  the  situation  I  suppose.  You  proceed  at 
hazard,  and  as  groping  in  the  dark,  by  turns  advancing  and 
receding ;  the  thread  you  have  hold  of  is  broken  at  every  in- 
stant, and  requires  incessantly  to  be  re-tied.  Instead  of  com- 
pleting the  presentation  of  an  idea  at  the  first,  after  having 
presented  it  imperfectly  once,  you  present  it  a  second  time 
still  imperfectly  ;  you  have  many  almosts,  many  fractions  of 
which  the  sum  remains  to  be  taken.  You  have  skirmished 
on  all  sides  of  the  place,  oneafter  another ; — made  false  attacks 
which  terminate  nothing.  One  idea  does  not  presuppose  an- 
other ;  one  idea  does  not  produce  another ;  in  what  you  have, 
you  have  no  guarantee  as  to  what  is  to  come,  the  passages 
(badly  named,  surely  !)  follow  one  another,  but  are  not  con- 
nected ;  as  idlers  who  live  by  the  day,  you  write  by  the  sen- 
tence, not  more  sure  of  the  second  after  the  first,  than  they 
as  to  provision  for  the  morrow.  Now  you  have  accu- 
mulated in  one  paragraph  the  matter  of  a  discourse ; 
now  the  discovery  that  you  have  failed  in  a  first  effort, 
throws  you  back  upon  an  idea  with  which  you  should  have 
nothing  fiirther  to  do;  and  these  repetitions,  these  returns, 
these  ambiguities,  these  digressions,  you  endeavor  to  dissem- 
ble by  logical  artifices,  by  subtile  distinctions,  turns  of  ex- 
pression, playing  upon  words.  This  uncertain,  hesitating,  out- 
of-breath  procedure  is  most  contrary  to  inspiration,  to  that 
continuous  movement  which  should  be  as  one  single  expira- 
tion of  a  powerful  chest.  The  regret  of  having  so  badly 
played  your  part,  of  having  exhibited   so  imperfectly  the 

*  We  find  here,  between  parentheses,  in  the  original  manuscript, 
the  words  "  define,  distinguish,"  which  seem  to  have  been  merely 
designed  by  M.  Vinet,  to  suggest  to  himself  some  more  particular 
explication,  which  he  thought  it  might  be  useful  to  give. — [Editoes.] 


270  IMPORTANCE   OF  DISPOSITION. 

richness  of  your  subject  and  your  thought,  puts  your  talent 
in  chains,  if  that  can  be  true  talent  to  which  the  power  of 
organization  is  wanting  ;  the  discourse,  breathless,  bridled, 
betrays  perplexity  and  fatigue  from  the  beginning.  The  ora- 
tor is,  as  it  were,  oppressed  by  the  painful  feeling  that  he  has 
not  more  than  half  gained  his  purpose  or  expressed  his 
thought,  that  he  has  made  only  half  impressions,  which  he 
vainly  endeavors  to  complete  by  other  half  impressions. 
This  discourse  which  is  thrown  away,  this  combat  which 
terminates  in  a  defeat,  oppresses  his  spirit  beforehand  ;  he 
feels  himself  conquered  before  the  close  of  the  battle. 

Buffon  has  described  perfectly,  the  two  opposite  states  of 
the  man  who  works  without  a  plan,  and  a  man  who  has 
formed  one. 

"  For  want  of  plan,  from  not  having  sufficiently  reflected 
on  his  subject,  an  intelligent  man  finds  himself  embarrassed, 
and  unable  to  begin  writing  ;  he  perceives  at  once  a  great 
number  of  ideas,  but  as  he  has  neither  compared  or  arranged 
them,  nothing  determines  him  to  prefer  some  to  others  ;  he 
therefore  remains  in  perplexity.  But  when  he  has  formed  a 
plan,  when  he  has  once  collected  and  put  in  order  all  the 
thoughts  which  are  essential  to  his  subject,  he  perceives 
readily  at  once  which  should  engage  his  pen,  he  is  conscious 
of  full  preparation  for  intellectual  effort,  he  is  in  haste  to 
make  it,  he  has  only  pleasure  in  writing,  ideas  follow  each 
other  readily,  style  is  natural  and  easy ;  warmth,  springing 
from  this  pleasure,  diffuses  itself  everywhere,  and  gives  life 
to  each  expression ;  all  is  more  and  more  animated  ;  the  tone 
rises,  the  objects  assume  color,  and  sentiment,  combined  with 
light,  increases  it,  extends  it,  transfers  it  from  that  which  is 
said  to  that  which  is  to  be  said,  and  style  becomes  interesting 
and  lucid."  * 

*  Buffon,  Discours  sur  le  Style,  in  Chrestomathie  Franfoise,  tome 
ill.,  p.  142,  troisieme  edition. 


IMPOETANCE  OF  DISPOSITION.  271 

Cardinal  Maury  also  teaches  excellently  on  the  same  sub- 
ject :  "  Why,"  says  this  writer,  "  do  we  discover  nothing  at 
certain  seasons  ?  Because  we  really  know,  neither  whither 
we  would  go,  nor  what  we  are  in  search  of.  We  have  here 
a  poetic  experience,  which  we  gain  every  day  from  the  art 
and  habit  of  writing.  We  think  we  are  in  a  lethargy  of 
barrenness  ;  we  are  only  in  the  midst  of  a  wilderness  and  a 
cloud."* 

To  recapitulate,  then,  what  we  have  been  saying,  we  remark : 
that  order  is  essential  to  the  very  idea  of  discourse  ;  that  it  is 
necessary  to  instruction  and  conviction  ;  that  it  is  the  condition 
of  invention  itself;  finally,  that  it  is  the  condition  of  inspiration. 

What  we  have  just  considered  prepares  us  to  hear  without 
surprise  this  expression  of  Herder  :  "I  readily  forgive  all 
faults  except  those  which  relate  to  disposition."  Herder,  un 
questionably,  does  not  put  false  ideas  and  bad  doctrines  in  the 
number  of  faults  which  he  forgives  ;  but,  excepting  these, 
we  can  understand  why  all  faults  in  oratory  should  have  ap- 
peared venial  to  him  when  compared  with  those  of  disposi- 
tion, since  it  is  disposition  that  properly  constitutes  discourse, 
and  that  it  is  in  this  especially  that  the  orator  reveals  him- 
self. 

But  where  is  the  principle  of  that  order  which  we  recom- 
mend? May  it  not  be  as  much  in  passion  as  in  reason? 
Nothing  I  know  is  as  logical,  after  its  own  manner,  as  pas- 
sion ;  and  that  we  may  depend  upon  it  for  the  direction  of  a 
discourse  of  which  it  is  the  principal  inspiration.  The  begin- 
ning we  may  be  sure  will  be  good,  and  the  beginning  will 
produce  all  the  rest.  It  will  be  repetitious,  it  will  retrace  its 
steps,  it  will  digress,  but  it  will  do  everything  with  grace 
and  felicity  which  always  accompany  it ;  and  it  would  be  less 
true  and  consequently  less  eloquent  if  it  were  more  logical  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  It  naturally  finds  the  order 
*  Maury,  Essai  sur  V Eloquence  de  la  Chaire,  xxx^a. 


272  IMPOETANCE  OF  DISPOSITION. 

which  suits  it,  and  it  finds  it  precisely  because  it  does  not 
seek  after  it.  The  rapid  propagation  of  ideas,  their  concate- 
nation by  means  of  thoroughly  vital  transitions,  which  them- 
selves constitute  the  movement  of  the  discourse,  suffice  for 
the  eloquence  of  passion.*  When  in  Andromache,  Racine 
makes  Hermione  speak,f  it  is  evident  that  the  disorder  of  the 
discourse  is  a  part  of  its  truth,  a  real  order,  and  that  this 
perfect  logic  of  passion  is  a  marvel  in  an  imitated  discourse. 
If  there  was  more  logical  order  in  it  the  discouse  would  be 
less  perfect. 

But  passion  does  not  suffice  in  instructive  discourse,  in 
which  disorder  would  not  be  order  sui  generis,  because 
it  would  not  be  true ;  in  which  not  being  true,  it  would  not 
be  in  taste ;  in  which  it  would  be  simple  disorder  and  con- 
fusion. 

When  we  take  logic  in  distinction  from  passion,  as  the 
principle  of  order,  we  have  to  meet  greater  difficulties. 

Logic,  as  it  appears  to  us,  has  its  propensity  as  well  as 
passion.  But  in  relation  to  the  sequence  and  concatenation 
of  ideas,  it  is  far  from  forming  an  instinct  as  true  and  as  in- 
fallible as  passion.  The  logical  sentiment,  if  we  may  use 
this  expression,  has  not,  by  any  means,  the  vivacity  of  sen- 
timents properly  so  called.  Ideas  are  objects,  logic  then  is 
objective ;  thought  cannot,  like  passion,  make  itself  its  own 
rule  and  measure.  It  has  its  rule  in  the  laws  of  thought, 
which  are  constant,  immutable  and  independent  of  the  tran- 
sient states  of  the  soul ;  and  although  these  laws,  taken  ab- 
stractly, are  the  necessary  forms  of  the  human  mind,  and  so 
to  speak  the  instincts  of  the  understanding,  they  do  not,  in 
application,  retain  their  character  as  instincts,  and  though 
their  operations  may  be  sure,  they  are  never  independent  of 
reflection.     Exercise  and  discipline  contribute  much  to  their 

*  See  le  Po^ysan  du  Danube  de  la  Fontaine,  la  prierede  Philoctete 
a  Pyrrhus,  dans  Sophocle,  Pauline  a  Polyeucte,  dans  Corneille. 
f  Acte  v.,  scene  v.,  "  Jene  t'ai  point  aime,  cruel,  etc." 


IMPORTANCE   OF  DISPOSITION.  273 

successful  use,  and  although  all  minds  acknowledge  the  same 
primitive  laws,  and  present  the  same  forms,  all  minds  are 
very  far  from  being  equally  perfect  in  their  structure,  equally 
logical. 

The  preacher,  undoubtedly,  has  a  sincere  interest  in  his 
subject ;  but  he  is  not  agitated  with  passion  ;  he  ought  not  to 
be;  the  affection  he  feels  is  profound   and  serious,  but  it 
leaves  him  calm ;  he  does  not  speak  under  the  excitement 
of  immediately  perilous  circumstances  ;  he  is  not  personally 
compromised ;  in  fine,  he  is  called  chiefly  to  instruct.     He 
may  then,  he  should,  have  command  of  his  feelmg ;  not  to 
commence  wherever  that   may  commence,  nor   follow  the 
course  in  which  it  would  lead  him  if  he  were  under  its  direc- 
tion.    In  order  to  be  moved  by  his  subject,  he  doubtless  does 
not  wait  until  he  has  explained  its  nature,  presented  its  proofs 
and  developed  its  consequences  to  his  hearers  ;  he  is  moved 
by  it  before  he  begins  this  work ;  it  is  because  he  is  moved 
by  it  that  he  does  begin  ;  but  it  is  not  inconsistent  with  sin- 
cerity to  delay  the  expression  of  an  emotion  until  it  can  be 
advantageously  expressed  and  communicated  to  others,  be- 
cause the  object  to  which  it  relates,  is  well  known  and  appre- 
ciated. 

What  we   have  here  said  of  instructive  discourse  has  a 
more  extended  application  than  the  expression  may  indicate. 
Whenever  we  would  instruct  or  persuade,  whether  from  the 
pulpit  or  the  tribime,  or  in  common  conversation,  we  ought 
to  study  economy  of  discourse,  have  a  plan  and  follow  it,  be- 
cause we  should  endeavor  to  impart  to  the  mind,  not  a  gene- 
ral impression,*  but  a  distinct   determination,  founded  on 
motives  equally  distinct.     In  this  respect  certain  discourses 
of  Racine  in  his  tragedies  are  as  perfectly  conformed  to  the 
*  M.  Vinet  adds  here  the  German   word  Gesammteindruck,  doubt- 
less as  giving  his  idea  better  than  the  French  words  with  which  he 
approximates  it. — [Editors.] 

12* 


274  OF  DISPOSITION 

rules  of  oratorical  disposition,  as  those  of  the  most  accom- 
plished orators.*  Read  also  the  discourse  of  Phenix  to 
Achilles  in  the  ninth  book  of  the  Iliad,  and  that  of  Pacuvius 
in  Titus  Livius,  (Liber  xxiii.  chapter  ix.)  The  study  of  elo- 
quence in  these  models  may  be  further  useful  to  us,  by  pre- 
venting us  from  taking  the  species  for  the  genus. 

The  discourse  of  the  pulpit  is  didactic  and  oratorical.  Dis- 
position should  have  respect  to  both  these  characteristics. 
Hence  the  study  we  are  prosecuting  is  divided  into  two  parts. 
We  are  to  treat  of  disposition,  first  in  the  logical  and  then  in 
the  oratorical  point  of  view. 

y\  §  2.   0/"  Disposition  under  the  logical  point  of  view.     {De- 
composition— grouping  or  co-ordination — Progress.) 

We  are  obliged  to  assume  that  in  the  preparation  of  a  dis- 
course, things  always  proceed  in  the  same  way.  This  sup- 
position, which  simplifies  our  work,  does  not  endanger  truth. 
In  certain  cases,  that  which  may  be  anterior  in  the  order  of 
time,  may  well  be  posterior  in  the  order  of  thought. 

Although  we  spoke  first  of  invention  and  then  of  dispo- 
sition, we  are  aware  that  disposition  is  sometimes  simul- 
taneous with  invention,  and  that  the  proposition  f  sometimes 
comes  last  of  all. 

Thus,  after  regarding  the  Gospel  as  great  in  what  it  de- 
mands ;  I  regard  it  as  great  in  what  it  gives ;  these  two 
ideas,  which  occur  to  me  one  after  the  other ^  are  united 
and  concentrated  in  the  general  idea ;  the  Gospel  is  great, 
which  forms  my  theme.  The  same  with  these  two  ideas  : 
The  Gospel  has  liber tg  for  its  end  ;  the  Gospel  has  liberty  as 
a  means  ;  which  are  combined  in  this  proposition  :   The  Gos- 

*  See  le  discours  d'Agrippine  dans  Britanmcus,  and  that  of  Pyrrhua 
dans  Andromaque. 

\  In  German,  Der  Hauptsatz. 


IN  A  LOGICAL   POINT  OF  VIEW.  275 

pel  is  a  law  of  liberty.  We  must,  however,  be  sure  that  the 
word  liberty  has  the  same  sense  in  both  of  the  particular 
propositions. 

But,  ordinarily,  and  perhaps  too  ordinarily,  this  is  not  the 
process.  A  proposition,  either  suggested  by  a  text,  or  sut)- 
plied  by  our  theological  system,  orpre-adopted.by  our  mind, 
presents  itself  to  us  completely  formed,  before  we  have  ac- 
tually in  thought,  either  all  the  ideas  which  it  embraces,  or 
all  the  proofs  which  establish  it.  It  is,  we  suppose,  always 
with  us  in  our  study.     What  follows  1 

The  theme  is  found.  The  idea  of  it,  we  will  suppose,  is 
fixed  and  well-defined  in  the  mind  of  the  orator.  Now, 
whether  he  is  to  unfold  or  to  prove,  it,  he  must  decompose  it, 
take  it  to  pieces  so  to  speak  as  one  does  a  piece  of  furniture 
or  a  machine  somewhat  too  large  for  a  door-way. 

This  is  the  moment  of  meditation.  Meditation  is  a  slow  and 
assiduous  incubation  of  the  subject,  which  fertilized,  in  a  sense, 
by  the  natural  warmth  of  the  orator,  by  the  interest  which 
identifies  him  with  his  object,  at  length  hatches  and  brings  to 
view  a  crowd  of  particular  ideas — assort  of  pell-mell  or  mob, 
particles  which  are  whirled  in  the  air,  but  which  seek  to  form 
groups,  masses,  and  do  not  rest  until  they  are  in  place  and 
In  order. 

For  when  division  is  the  only  object,  the  subject  goes  on 
dividing  itself  until  it  becomes  impossible  to  be  divided  any 
farther.  But  this  pulverizing  of  the  subject  is  not  true  di- 
vision. Supposmg  what  I  do  not  believe  that  simple  medi- 
tation might  find  again  all  these  particles,  it  could  accom- 
plish only  one  part  of  the  orator's  task.  The  aggregation  of 
tlie  ideas  forms  a  concrete  mass,  not  an  organism.  We  must 
attain  to  all  these  ideas,  but  not  by  a  road  traced  by  chance. 
The  road  is  a  natural  one,  a  physiological  one,  like  that  of  the 
sap  to  the  principal  branches,  these  to  the  boughs,  these  to 
the  leaves. 


276  OF  DISPOSITION 

Thus,  as  we  just  now  excluded  certain  cases,  in  which  in- 
vention of  the  subject  itself,  of  the  proposition,  comes  later 
and  perhaps  last,  so  we  here  exclude  this  work  of  meditation, 
this  fermentation  of  the  mind.  This  is  a  deep  w^hich  at 
present  we  are  not  concerned  with ;  and  while  the  orator 
often  passes  from  the  branches  to  the  trunk,  or  from  the  top 
to  the  bottom,  we,  on  the  contrary,  shall  pass  from  the  trunk 
to  the  branches,  from  the  bottom  to  the  top. 

We  must  then  pass  from  the  trunk,  which  is  the  proposi- 
tion, to  the  principal  branches ;  we  must  distinguish  and 
seize  them,  that  is  to  say,  make  a  general  division  of  the 
subject.  It  will  sometimes  be  found  that  the  subject  (the 
proposition)  has  a  necessary  division,  and  mil  bear  no  other. 
In  this  first  decomposition  there  may  be  no  mystery  ;  the  di- 
vision of  a  proposition  into  the  exposition  of  a  precept  and 
its  motives,  of  a  truth  and  its  practical  consequences,  is  as 
easy  to  an  ordinary  as  to  an  ingenious  man  ;  and  it  is  below 
this  first  distribution,  if  we  may  so  speak,  that  the  difficulty 
and  work  of  talent,  true  decomposition,  begins. 

We  exclude  these  alnjost  unavoidable  divisions,  in  which 
invention  scarcely  has  place ;  and  we  think  we  may  say,  as 
we  give  our  thought  to  others,  that  the  power  and  effect  of 
the  discourse  depends,  in  great  measure,  on  this  first  decom- 
position of  the  subject. 

There  are  plans  energetic  and  rich,  which,  applying  the  le- 
ver as  deeply  as  possible,  raise  the  entire  mass  of  the  subject ; 
there  are  others  which  escape  the  deepest  divisions  of  the 
matter,  and  which  raise,  so  to  speak,  only  one  layer  of  the 
subject. 

Here  it  is,  especially,  here,  in  the  conception  of  plans,  that 
we  distinguish  those  orators  who  are  capable  of  the  good, 
from  those  who  are  capable  of  the  better — of  that  better, 
to  say  the  truth,  which  is  the  decisive  evidence  of  talent  or  of 
labor. 


UNDER  A  LOGICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW.  277 

We  may  here  apply  the  well-known  verse : 

Savoir  la  marclie  est  cbose  tres  unie ; 
Savoir  le  jeu,  c'est  le  fruit  du  genie  ;* 

and  these  other  verses  which  are  less  known  : 

Le  Mieux,  dit-on,  est  I'ennemi  du  Bien: 
Jamais  le  gout  n'admit  ce  faux  proverbe  ; 
C'etait  le  Mieux  qu'osa  tenter  Malherbe ; 
Maynard  fit  bien  et  Maynard  ne  fit  rien. 
Gloire  a  ce  Mieux,  noble  but  du  genie ! 
II  enflammait  I'auteur  d'Iphigenie, 
Boileau,  Poussin,  Phidias,  Raphael. 
Le  Bien,  timide,  est  le  Mieux  vulgaire ; 
A  feu  La  Harpe  il  ne  profite  guere ; 
11  en  est  mort:  le  Mieux  est  immorteLf 

Every  one  should  at  least  strive,  as  far  as  possible,  for  this 
better,  and  not  be  content  with  the  first  plan  which  may  pre- 
sent itself  to  his  thought,  unless,  after  having  fathomed  it,  he 
finds  it  sufficient  for  his  purpose,  suited  to  exhaust  his  sub- 
ject, to  draw  forth  its  power,  unless,  in  a  word,  he  can  see 
nothing  beyond  it. 

Many  plans  may  present  themselves  on  the  same  subject. 
If  I  am  to  prove  that  the  thought  of  death  is  profitable,  I  may 
demonstrate  successively  : 

*  "  To  know  the  move  is  a  very  simple  thing ; 
To  know  the  game,  is  the  fruit  of  genius." — ^Tr. 

f     The  Better,  they  say,  is  the  enemy  of  the  Good: 
Taste  never  admits  this  false  proverb, 
It  was  the  Better  Malherbe  ventured  to  attempt. 
Maynard  did  well,  and  Maynard  did  nothing : 
Glory  to  this  Better,  noble  aim  of  genius, 
It  inflamed  the  author  of  Iphigenie, 
Boileaii,  Poussin,  Phidias,  Raphael. 
The  Good,  timid  thing,  is  the  Better  of  the  vulgar, 
It  scarcely  profited  the  defunct  La  Harpe, 
It  caused  his  death :  The  Better  is  immortal. — ^Tr. 


278  OF  DISPOSITION- 

That  it  controls  the  imngi;:-ition,  regulates  the  affections, 
keeps  conscience  awake. 

That  it  restrains  and  that  it  excites. 

That  it  is  the  best  introduction  to  the  knowledge  of  man 
and  of  God. 

That  it  teaches  us  at  the  same  time  to  contemn  and  to 
value  life. 

That  it  reproves  our  ambition,  our  sensuality,  our  resent- 
ments. 

That  it  places  us  at  the  true  point  of  vision  in  relation  to 
life,  ourselves,  our  fellows,  and  God. 

That  it  makes  us  afraid  of  evil,  makes  us  courageous  in 
respect  to  everything  else. 

In  fact,  under  different  forms  and  names,  we  may  find  the 
same  matter  in  sermons  constructed  on  these  different  plans. 
But  the  question  we  have  to  settle  is,  which  of  these  plans  it 
is  that  presents  the  truth  under  the  most  striking  aspect,  with 
the  greatest  affluence  of  detail,  and  of  detail  the  most  advan- 
tageous 1  It  is  very  probable  that  we  shall  prefer  Bourda- 
loue's  plan  on  this  subject,  before  any  other. 

"I  advance  three  propositions  which  I  wish  you  to 

understand  well,  for  they  form  the  division  of  this  discourse. 
I  say,  the  thought  of  death  is  the  most  sovereign  remedy  for 
quenching  the  fire  of  our  passions ;  this  is  the  first  part.  I 
say  that  the  thought  of  death  is  the  most  infallible  rule  for 
bringing  our  deliberations  to  a  just  conclusion;  this  is  the 
second  part.  Finally,  I  say  that  the  thought  of  death  is  the 
most  efficacious  means  for  inspiring  us  with  a  holy  fervor  in 
our  actions ;  this  is  the  third  part."* 

It  is  important  to  remark  that  in  choosing  a  plan  we  often 
find  a  subject  in  the  subject  itself  Among  the  different 
points  of  view  which  the  proposition  combines,  we  choose 

*  BouRDALOUE,  Premier  Sermon  du  Careme,  tome  i.,  p.  131,  edition 
Lefevre. 


Uin)ER  A  LOGICAL   POINT  OF  VIEW.  279 

that  to  which  we  would  call  attention.  In  the  example  I  just 
now  gave,  all  the  plans  proposed  rela^te  to  the  same  point  of 
view;  but  in  dividing  this  propositiosr^into  its  proofs,  it 
may  be  decomposed  into  its  parts,  its  species,  its  relations. 
Take  this  passage :  "  Perfect  love  casteth  out  fear."  (1 
John,  iv.  18.)  As  I  apply  myself  to  one  word  or  another,  I 
shall  have  three  plans,  which  will  be  three  subjects. 

Love. — It  casts  out  fear,  because  it  is  full  of  devotion,  of 
hope,  of  joy. 

Casts  out.  Love  casts  out  fear ;  for  we  cannot  fear  when 
we  love ;  we  have  nothing  to  fear  when  we  love. 

Fear.  Love  casts  out  the  fear  of  God's  ^vTath,  of  ill  suc- 
cess, of  the  judgments  of  men,  of  ingratitude. 

This  proposition,  likewise,  "  Righteousness  exalteth  a  na- 
tion," (Proverbs,  xiv.  34,)  is  susceptible  of  different  divis- 
ions, accordingly  as  we  would  develop  the  idea  by  means  of 
fact,  by  its  parts,  by  a  comparison,  afRrmatively  or  nega- 
tively : 

1.  In  prosperity, — in  adversity  ; 

2.  Internally, — externally  ; 

3.  Without  danger  to  itself, — ^without  prejudice  to  others, 
— without  envy  on  their  part ; 

4.  More  than  arms, — wealth, — science. 

Tlius  when  Homiletics  gives  us  rules  or  directions  as  to 
the  conception  of  plans,  it  is  more  properly  instructing  us  in 
regard  to  invention.  But  assuredly,  when  it  proposes  to  us 
different  principles  for  the  distribution  of  the  matter,  it  does 
not  leave  us  to  chance  in  respect  to  them,  but  requires  us  to 
decide  between  them  according  to  the  end  we  wish  to  attain. 
We  have  now  indeed  to  choose  our  subject,  or  rather  to 
complete  the  choice. 

The  following  are  principles  of  division  indicated  by  Doc- 
tor Ammon.*     We  may,  he  says, 

*  Ammon,  Anleitung  zur  Kanzelheredsarnhcit,  p.  251,  edition  de  1812. 


280  OF  DISPOSITION 

I.  Decompose  the  whole  into  its  particular  notions  and 
propositions. 

Example.  Of  the  •pernicious  influence  of  ambition  on  hu- 
man happiness. 

1.  What  is  ambition  1 

2.  Its  unhappy  influence  on  temporal  good. 

a.  It  makes  us  habitually  discontented  with  ourselves. 

b.  It  excites  others  to  resist  us. 

c.  It  does  not  secure  to  us  the  esteem  of  other  men ; 
and, 

d.  Still  less  their  love. 

3.  Its  unhappy  influence  on  spiritual  good. 

a.  It  hinders  self-knowledge. 

b.  It  prevents  us  from  being  just  to  others. 

c.  It  prevents  us  from  loving  others. 

II.  We  may  decompose  the  genius  into  its  species.  Ex- 
ample :    The  veracity  of  the  divine  promises. 

1.  General  promises:    "Who  will  have   all  men  to  be 
saved  and   to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth." 
Timothy,  ii.  4.) 

2.  Particular  promises  which  God  has  made. 

a.  To  certain  peoples.  (The  Jews.) 

b.  To  certain  families.  (Abraham.) 

c.  To  certain  men.  (David,  Jesus.) 

III.  We  may  contemplate  the  principal  thought  in  its 
diflTerent  relations.  Example  :  The  advantages  of  genuine 
culture.  * 

1.  To  man  as  a  reasonable  being. 

2.  To  man  as  a  member'  of  society. 

a.  As  a  citizen. 

b.  As  a  husband  and  father. 

c.  As  a  friend. 

d.  As  a  master.  (Lehrer.) 

*In  German,  Au/Mcerung. 


UNDER  A  LOGICAL   POINT  OF  VIEW.  281 

rV.  We  may  decompose  a  general  precept  of  the  moral  law 
into  several  subordinate  precepts.  I  substitute  here  another 
example  in  place  of  that  proposed  by  the  author  :  Respect 
for  the  reputation  of  others. 

1.  Not  to  attack  it. 

2.  Not  to  lead  others  to  think,  by  our  conduct,  that  we 
have  no  regard  to  it. 

3.  To  defend  it  when  attacked. 

4.  To  admonish  one  when  his  conduct  may  lead  to  an  un- 
favorable judgment  of  it ;  to  care  for  his  reputation,  when  he 
has  no  care  for  it  himself. 

V.  We  may  decompose  a  theme  into  its  different  motives 
or  its  different  proofs.  Example :  The  divine  truth  of  the 
doctrine  of  Jesus.     It  proceeds  : 

1.  From  its  agreement  with  the  laws  of  our  reason. 

2.  From  its  divine  effects  on  our  hearts. 

3.  From  the  wonderful  events  which  accompanied  its  in- 
troduction and  establishment. 

VI.  We  may,  finally,  decompose  the  proposition  into  its 
subordmate  parts  in  a  gradual  manner.  Example  (substi- 
tuted for  that  of  Doctor  Ammon)  :  Idleness. 

1.  It  renders  us  unprofitable  to  ourselves. 

2.  It  renders  us  unprofitable  to  others. 

3.  It  renders  us  injurious  to  others  and  ourselves. 

But,  whatever  mode  of  distribution  we  may  adopt,  or 
however  great  or  small  may  be  our  success  in  the  invention 
of  the  plan  or  principal  divisions,  we  are  to  observe  the  fol- 
lowing rules  :  * 

*  In  giving  these  rules,  we  sufficiently  indicate  the  chief  difficulty 
or  danger  to  young  orators  and  even  to  experienced  ones,  presented 
by  disposition.  The  ideas  of  the  mind  are  not  individuals  but  parts 
of  that  continuous  and  endless  line,  which  connects  all  objects  to- 
gether in  our  mind,  as  they  are  connected  in  the  universe.  No  idea 
separates  itself  spontaneously  from  other  ideas.     This  logical  fact  is 


282  OF  DISPOSITION 

1.  Not  to  co-ordinate  that  which  is  subordinate,  not  to  sub- 
ordinate that  which  is  co-ordinate.  I  call  that  subordinate  in 
regard  to  an  idea,  which  is  comprised  in  the  sphere  or 
province  of  that  idea.  I  call  that  co-ordinate,  which,  with 
this  idea,  forms  part  of  a  more  general  idea.  The  fault 
which  violates  this  rule,  consists  in  presenting  as  distinct  and 
separate,  two  ideas  which  enter  into  one  another,  or  of  which 
one  forms  a  part  of  the  other.  "^ 

Thus,  of  the  two  ideas  of  charity  and  indulgence^  the 
second  is  subordinate  to  the  first ;  and  the  two  ideas  o^  oblig- 
ingness and  indulgence  are  co-ordinate  the  one  to  the  other. 

2.  Not  to  present  as  two  distinct  ideas  or  motives,  two 
points  of  view  of  the  same  idea  or  motive ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
same  motive  or  idea  taken  in  a  particular  relation  which  does 
not  essentially  change  it.  These  ideas  are  like  vases  which 
diifer  from  one  another  only  as  to  the  handle.  Words  the 
most  different,  do  not  always  convey  essentially  different 
ideas,  as  in  this  division :  "  It  is  characteristic  of  christian 
faith,  that  it  excites^  guides^  supports.''''  But  to  prove  success- 
ively that  a  thing  is  contrary  to  good  sense  or  contrary  to 
our  interests,  is  to  condemn  ourselves  to  be  in  presence  of 
nothing  after  finishing  the  first  part,  I  may  say  as  much  of 
this  plan :  "  Intolerance  is  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  gos- 
pel, and  shows  great  self-ignorance."  We  are  not  sure  as  to 
our  plan,  until  we  have  penetrated  rapidly  perhaps,  but  partic- 
ularly, the  ideas  of  which  it  is  composed ;  if  we  have  not  done 
this,  we  may  undertake  a  confused  and  barren  subject,  from 
reliance  on  a  delusive  presentiment  of  abundance  and  clearness. 

indispensable  to  order,  exactitude  and  clearness.  It  is  logic  that 
individualizes  ideas.  It"  reduces  each  of  them  within  certain  well- 
defined  limits,  which  are,  in  fact,  artificial,  but  which  are  necessary  to 
all  exact  reasoning.  This  caution  or  this  art  comprises  the  whole 
secret  of  disposition. 

*  See  HuFFELL,  Uher  das  Wesenund  den  Beruf  des  evangelisch-christ- 
lichen  Geistlichen,  troisieme  edition,  (1835,)  tome  i.,  p.  277. 


UNDER  A  LOGICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW.  283 

I  will  extend  this  rule  farther ;  I  will  say,  that  we  must 
not  distinguish  ideas  which,  from  their  near  relation  to  each 
other,  cannot  but  be  confounded,  and  which,  without  being 
identical,  implicate  one  another.  It  is  most  difficult  to  treat 
under  distinct  heads  gentle^  easy  to  he  intreated^  in  James,  iii. 
17;  or  indeed  peace,  serenity.  In  some  passages  of  the 
Bible  there  are  enumerations  which  are  but  little  systematic. 

3.  To  avoid  being  led  by  contiguity  or  affinity  of  ideas  to 
put  into  one  part  of  the  discourse  what  belongs  to  another 
part,  either  preceding,  or  following. 

4.  Not  to  treat  an  idea  before  that  which  is  to  be  used  in 
illustrating  or  proving  it.  This  rule  condemns  not  only  the 
grosser  instances  ofpetiiio  prmcipii,  but  all  distribution,  the 
effect  of  which  would  be  to  introduce  too  late,  that  which  is 
required  to  make  an  idea  intelligible.  This  fault  would  be 
committed  {e.  g.)  by  proving,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  thing 
will  conciliate  for  us  the  esteem  of  good  men,  and  after  this, 
proving  that  the  thing  is  just. 

These,  which  are  all  negative,  are  fundamental  rules,  to 
which  the  plan  must  conform,  and  without  the  observation 
of  which  a  plan  is  decidedly  vicious.  It  is  less  so,  doubtless, 
yet  still  it  is  vicious,  when  the  system  of  decomposition  is  con- 
ventional, arbitrary,  and  when  symmetry  is  preferred  to  natu- 
ral order.  This  is  the  case  when  division  is  made  previous 
to  thorough  meditation  of  the  subject.  We  doubtless  may 
make,  artificially,  a  plan  which  does  not  contravene  the  laws 
of  logic,  and  which  pleases  the  eye  by  its  regularity  ;  but  this 
external  regularity  may,  nevertheless,  do  violence  to  the  es- 
sential nature  of  things ;  it  separates  and  keeps  at  a  distance 
what  requires  to  be  united ;  the  divisions  of  the  matter  are 
trenches  and  not  articulations ;  the  discourse  is  realy  inter- 
rupted at  every  turn ;  the  artifice  of  oratorical  transitions  is 
no  substitute  for  the  force  of  those  natural  and  vivid  transi- 
tions, or  rather  the  perpetual  engendering  of  one  idea  from 


284  OF  DISPOSITION 

another,  which  distinguishes  genuine  order ;  the  discourse 
is  not  compact,  is  not  liquid ;  memory,  which  symmetry 
claims  to  aid,  is  much  more  and  much  better  aided  by  a 
natural  order.  The  greatest  pulpit  talents  I  know  have  ac- 
cepted these  shackles,  and  their  success  has  been  the  misfor- 
tune of  the  pulpit. 

All  that  we  have  said  of  the  general  disposition  or  plan 
of  the  discourse,  applies,  undoubtedly,  to  each  of  the  parts 
the  union  of  which  forms  the  general  plan,  and  has  only 
to  be  transferred  to  them.  We,  nevertheless,  think  it  may 
be  useful  to  give  some  directions  as  to  the  plan  of  the  parts 
of  the  discourse.  We  prescribe  three  rules  relating  to  the 
ideas  of  which  each  of  these  parts  consists :  unity  of  bearing 
or  direction,  generalization,  subdivision. 

1.  If  the  manner  of  proceeding  in  decomposing  the  theme 
of  each  part  was  necessarily  the  same  in  all,  if  all  descended 
from  the  general  to  the  particular,  we  should  have  nothing  to 
add  to  what  we  have  said  ;  but  here,  more  than  in  the  gene- 
ral conception  of  the  discourse,  the  mind  chooses  to  take  the 
particular  as  the  point  of  departure,  and  we  cannot  think  this 
wrong.  If  the  other  method  has  great  logical  advantages,^ 
this  has  substantial  ones,  as  it  leads  us  straight  onward  to 
ideas,  and  not  by  the  ladder  of  analysis.  But  we  must  ad- 
mit that,  in  this  last  case,  as  the  point  of  departure  or  gene- 
ral idea  has  not  been  determined  beforehand,  we  run  the  risk 
of  not  attaching  ourselves,  in  each  particular  idea,  to  the 
stand-points  which  correspond  to  that  of  the  general  idea. 
Fractions  are  gathered  which  have  not  perhaps  the  same 
denominator.  The  idea  we  should  find  and  accommodate  to 
the  general  design  of  the  discourse  is  indeed  found  now  for 
substance,  but  as  tending  towards  an  object  different  from 
that  of  the  general  object,  or  of  the  part  of  the  discourse  in 
which  it  has  place.     The  same  idea  may  be  presented  under 


Uin)ER  A  LOGICAL   POINT  OF  VIEW.  285 

the  aspect  of  a  means,  when  it  should  have  been  under  that 
of  encouragement.  Thus,  as  to  the  ideas  of  utility  and  pur- 
pose, of  censure  and  exhortation,  of  customs  and  rules,  of 
obstacles  and  means,  of  duty  and  taste,  of  means  and  ways, 
of  source  and  condition,  of  object  and  purpose,  of  illusion 
and  pretext,  of  characteristics  and  rules,  of  shades  and  de- 
grees, of  motives  and  consequences,  of  proofs  and  motives, 
of  effects  and  symptoms. — We  hence  see  the  danger  of  writ- 
ing passages  beforehand,  without  a  view  of  the  subject  as  a 
whole.  We  cannot,  without  modifying  them,  incorporate 
them  into  the  discourse,  and  we  are  led  by  regret  at 
losing  them,  especially  if  they  are  beautiful,  to  violate  the 
natural  sequence  of  the  discourse,  and  the  laws  of  propor- 
tion, in  order  to  find  a  place  for  them,  and  we  employ  for 
this  purpose  logical  artifices  which  never  succeed,  since  the 
false  can  never  be  a  substitute  for  the  true.  * 

2.  The  particular  ideas  must  not  only  have  a  unity  of  de- 
sign and  bearing,  but  there  must  be  particular  groups  in  the 
principal  groups,  that  those  which  are  susceptible  of  combi- 
nation under  the  same  leading  idea,  may  have  a  common 
centre,  tending  to  generalization.  We  do  not  mean,  that  we 
are  to  limit  ourselves  to  general  ideas  and  suppress  details, 
but  that  we  must  strengthen  particular  ideas  by  giving  them 
a  centre  and  forming  them  into  masses.  By  restricting  our- 
selves to  general  ideas,  we  should  make  each  discourse  a 
resume  of  many  discourses,  a  broth  too  strong  for  weak 
stomachs  ;  we  should  deprive  ourselves  of  that  multitude  of 
aspects  and  applications,  which  are  the  life  of  eloquence ; 
we  should  give  little  instruction,  we  should  excite  little  emo- 
tion.    Those  discourses  which   comprise  in   one  paragraph 

*  "  Those  who  fear  to  lose  isolated  thoughts,  and  who  write  de- 
tached passages  at  different  times,  never  combine  them  without 
forced  transitions." — [Buffon.] 


286  LOGICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW. 

the  substance  of  a  whole  discourse,  remind  us,  in  one  respect, 
of  this  verse  of  Boileau  : 

Souvent  trop  d'  abondance  appauvrit  la  mati^re.* 

The  rule  we  give  then  relates  purely  to  disposition. 

In  truth,  are  not  sermons  consisting  of  general  ideas, 
which  absorb  at  once  what  should  form  the  matter  of  a  series 
of  discourses,  distinguished  in  general,  rather  by  poverty 
than  affluence,  and  if  an  orator  has  seen  but  one  subject 
where  others  would  have  seen  many,  is  it  not  because  he  has 
employed  himself  too  little  in  meditation,  in  deep  study  ? 

3.  The  restriction  or  explanation  of  the  second  rule  leads 
us  to  a  third.  We  must  learn  to  divide  again,  or  to  sub-di- 
vide ;  that  is  to  say,  to  decompose  the  principal  ideas  into 
as  many  parts  or  points  of  view  as  we  can,  without  ap- 
proaching tenuity  or  subtility,  by  which  attention  is  wearied 
and  interest  destroyed.  We  would  in  oratorical  discourse 
imitate  Corneille  in  the  tragedy  cf Horace^  the  subject  of 
which,  as  supplied  by  History,  would  not  have  sufficed  for  a 
tragedy,  if  the  poet  had  not  been  able  to  space  it.  Di- 
vide et  impera.  it  may  seem  useless  and  puerile  to  be 
decomposing  certain  ideas,  but  if  it  is  sometimes  well  to  leap 
over  intermediate  spaces,  it  is  also  well  sometimes  to  note 
them  one  by  one,  and  to  arrive  at  the  end  only  step  by  step. 
Let  us  consider  that  in  this  matter  the  road,  the  travelling  is 
itself  important,  and  that  it  is  not  with  discourse  as  with  a 
ladder  on  which  we  may  ascend  or  descend  three  rounds  at 
once.  In  this  ladder  of  discourse,  every  round  should  be 
touched.  As  I  am  now  speaking  of  disposition  only  in  the  logi 
cal  point  of  view,  that  is  to  say,  in  relation  to  the  understand- 
ing and  judgment,  I  shall  not  stop  to  show  that  the  impress- 
ion we  receive  from  the  truth  is  proportional  not  only  to  our 

*  Boileau,  UArt  Poetique,  chant  iii.    "Too  much  abundance  often 
impoverishes  the  matter  of  the  discourse." 


OF   DISPOSITION,    ETC.  287 

consciousness  as  to  the  end  we  have  reached,  but  also  as  to  our 
acquaintance  with  the  road  by  which  we  have  reached  it.  It 
must  be  evident  to  every  one,  that  there  is  a  great  difference 
between  the  delay  hence  arising  which  has  such  oratorical 
force,  and  that  which  results  from  turnings  and  deviations  ;  for 
here  we  do  not  relax  our  movement ;  we  take  short  steps, 
but  they  are  firm  and  energetic.  Eestrictmg  myself  to  the 
logical  point  of  view,  I  will  say,  that  though  the  mind  some- 
times delights  in  rapid  movement  and  in  bounding  over 
larger  spaces  in  each  effort,  like  Bossuet  in  his  Funeral  Ora- 
tions^ sub-division  has  two  advantages : — a.  It  increases  the 
sense  of  evidence  ;  it  increases,  so  to  speak,  the  truth,  (not  the 
word,  for  we  surely  mean  not  to  teach  the  art  of  elongation.) — 
b.  It  aids  the  understanding  of  weaker  persons,  by  dividing  the 
division,  and  retaining  their  attention  at  each  time  but  for  a 
short  space.* 

§  3.    Of  Disposition  under  the  Oratorical  point  of  view. 

We  have  distinguished  logical  or  didactic  disposition, 
which  is  concerned  only  with  knowledge  and  judgment,  from 
oratorical  disposition  which  aims  to  produce  an  effect  on  the 
soul  and  through  the  soul  upon  the  will. 

But  these  things  are  not  different  in  such  a  sense,  that  a 
disposition  which  is  not  logical  may  be  oratorical.  So  far 
from  this,  logical  disposition  is  the  basis  of  oratorical,  just 
as  reason  is  the  basis  of  eloquence.  Even  more ;  a  discourse 
logically  arranged,  is,  thereby,  to  a  certain  degree,  oratorical. 

*  Resuming  the  comparison  which  he  has  several  times  used  in 
this  chapter,  M.  Yinet  adds :  "  The  ladder  whose  steps  are  as  much 
less  distant  from  each  other  as  they  are  more  numerous."  [Edi- 
tors.] See  BouEDALouE,  mr  la  Pensee  de  la  Mort,  deuxieme  partie, 
tome  i.,  p.  135,  edition  Lef6vre:  Massillon,  swr  le  Salut,  premiere 
partie,  tome  i.,  p.  4*73,  edition  Lefevre ;  et  sur  la  Passion  de  Jems 
Christ,  troisieme  partie,  tome  i.,  p.  631,  meme  edition. 


288  OF  DISPOSITION   UNDER  THE 

It  is  evident  that  a  fault  in  logical  disposition,  by  impairing 
proof,  impairs  impression  in  the  same  degree,  seeing  that  the 
soul  is  struck  or  penetrated  with  a  truth  in  the  proportion  in 
which  it  is  made  certain  and  manifest ;  and  in  the  same  way 
it  is  evident  that  all  progress  in  proof  is  progress  in  persua- 
sion, and  even  immediate  progress,  since  from  the  nature  of 
the  subject  matter  of  sacred  discourse,  it  is  scarcely  possible 
that  what  is  spoken  to  the  understanding  should  not  be  also 
spoken  to  the  heart.  The  effect  of  argumentation  in  dis" 
course  on  religion  or  morality,  is  always  a  mixed  effect.* 
For  when  we  speak  of  oratorical  disposition,  we  assume  that 
the  materials  to  be  arranged  are  themselves  oratorical,  and 
disposition  can  only  give  evidence  and  force  to  their  oratori- 
cal character. 

But  while  there  is  something  already  oratorical  in  a  log- 
ical disposition  of  suoh  a  discourse,  there  are  means  of  ren- 
dering it  oratorical,  which,  though  founded  on  or  conformed 
to  logic,  are  not  suggested  by  it,  and  apart  from  the  use  of 
which,  the  discourse  would  still  be  perfectly  logical.  They 
correspond  to  a  logic  which  may  be  called  the  logic  of  the 
soul,  and  we  may  consequently  name  them  psychological. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  soul,  its  first  necessity  in  the  absence 
of  action,  or  in  expectation  of  action,  is  movement,  and  be- 
cause eloquence  is  the  language  which  the  soul  would  hear, 
movement  is  the  characteristic  of  eloquence  or  oratorical  dis- 
course.    Eloquentia  nihil  est  nisi  motus  animoe  continuus.\ 

It  is  the  part  of  the  orator  then,  to  give  the  soul  the  move- 

*  Rhnhard,  (cited  by  Huffell,  Uher  das  Wesen  und  den  Beruf  des 
geistlichen,  tome  i,,  p.  266,  at  the  bottom,)  Uber  die  WichtigJceit  des 
Sinnes  fur  Hceuslicheit,  says :  "  1.  Die  Natur,  hereitet  ihn  vor ; — 2.  Die 
Klugheit  roBth  ihn  an  ; — 3.  Die  Pfficht  gehietet  ihn ; — 4.  Die  Religion 
heiligt  ihn." 

f  "  Quid  aliud  est   eloquentia   nisi  motus   animse  continuus  ? 

(ClOBRO.) 


ORATORICAL   POINT   OF   VIEW.  289 

ment  which  it  requires,  a  movement  tending  to  a  certain  end. 
But  in  what  consists  this  movement  1  It  consists  in  the  hear- 
er's proceeding  from  indecision,  from  indifference,  from  tor- 
por of  will,  to  a  full  determination,  which  has  place  in  the 
proportion  in  which  the  soul  unites  itself  more  closely  to  the 
truth  which  is  presented  to  it. 

The  movement  of  which  we  speak,  according  to  the  ex- 
pression of  Cicero,  which  we  have  cited,  is  a  perpetual  or 
continued  movement. 

We  may,  by  a  word  or  an  isolated  act,  give  a  movement 
to  the  soul,  inclining  it  immediately  to  a  certain  object,  to 
perform  an  act  of  will ;  but  this  movement  is  only  a  shock. 
By  the  same  means  we  may  repeat,  multiply  these  shocks. 
They  are  fractions  of  eloquence,  eloquent  moments ;  these  are 
not  eloquence,  they  are  neither  the  oratorical  art  nor  the  ora- 
torical genius.  Eloquence  consists  in  maintaining  movement 
by  the  development  of  a  thought  or  a  proof,  in  perpetuating 
it  according  to  the  expression  of  Cicero. 

To  perpetuate  this  movement,  is  not  an  artifice  unworthy 
of  the  candor  of  truth,  as  if  it  restrained  the  hearer  from 
taking  breath,  from  pausing,  from  knowing  where  he  is.  The 
violation  of  the  law  of  candor,  if  there  be  any,  begins  with 
the  choice  of  the  elements ;  if  we  may  not  dispose  of  them 
oratorically,  we  should  not  have  chosen  elements  which  are 
themselves  oratorical.  The  first  error  was  that  we  did  not 
address  ourselves  exclusively  to  reason.  We  have  examined 
this  point,  and  shall  not  now  return  to  it.  If  in  proportion 
as  we  move  the  soul  w^e  enlighten  reason,  if  light  increases 
with  heat,  if  at  each  spot,  where  the  hearer  pauses,  he  can  sat- 
isfy himself  as  to  the  way  he  has  taken,  and  justify  to  his 
reason,  the  emotion  of  his  soul,  how  is  the  procedure  of  the 
orator  to  be  blamed  on  the  score  of  rectitude  1  Truth  was 
made  to  move  the  soul,  the  soul  was  made  to  be  moved  by 
tsruth.  May  we  say  that  the  truth  which  is  supremely  amia- 
13 


290  OF  DISPOSITION  UNDER  THE 

ble,  has  been  received  when  it  has  not  been  loved  ?  It  is  in 
its  bosom  that  the  contemplative  faculty  of  the  soul  is  har- 
monized and  interfused  with  the  affective  or  emotional  fac- 
ulty. 

The  first  rule  of  oratorical  movement  is,  we  have  seen,  con- 
tinuity. This  rule  is  negative.  It  only  requires  that  the  move- 
ment be  not  interrupted ;  and  why  should  it  be  interrupted  ? 

It  is  necessary  that  the  movement  be  continuous,  because 
whatever  inten'upts  it,  not  only  does  that,  but  reacts  destruc- 
tively on  the  effect  already  produced. 

That  it  may  be  continuous,  it  is  necessary,  that  what  fol- 
lows an  argument  or  an  idea,  though  entirely  different  from 
the  preceding  argument  or  idea,  should  be  suited  to  sustain 
the  impression  which  the  hearer  has  received  from  what  has 
preceded,  and  not  to  give  his  soul  a  wholly  different  direction. 
Thus  the  continuity  is  broken,  when  after  having  interested 
the  soul  the  orator  addresses  reason,  intending  to  return  to 
the  soul  afterwards.  It  is  also  broken  by  every  digression, 
every  excursion  from  the  subject,  which  induces  forgetfulness 
of  the  orator's  design.  And  in  this  case,  the  intervening  in- 
terest so  far  from  excusing  the  orator,  makes  his  fault  more 
manifest. 

Even  when  these  faults  find  no  place  in  the  discourse,  the 
continuity  of  the  movement  may  be  broken  by  yet  another 
means  ;  namely,  multiplied  subdivisions.  Here  is  the  con- 
demnation of  those  symmetrical  plans  which  have  so  invaded 
the  pulpit.  I  question  whether  the  traditional  form  of  ser- 
mons, stiff  and  cold  schematisme,  has  as  much  tended  to  in- 
struction, as  it  has  injured  eloquence.  On  this  account  we 
owe  thanks  to  those  who  have  done  honor  to  the  Homily,  in 
which  there  is  always  a  kind  of  continuity  arising,  accord- 
ing to  the  nature  of  the  text  from  the  connection  of  the 
ideas,  or  the  sequence  of  facts.      Fenelon,   in   his   second 


OEATOEICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW.  291 

Dialogue  on  Eloquence,*  opposes  divisions  altogether  as 
presenting  only  an  apparent  order,  as  dessiccating  and  forcing 
the  discourse,  as  dividing  it  into  three  or  four  discourses. 
The  great  orators  of  antiquity  and  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
did  not  divide  their  discourses,  in  which,  nevertheless,  they 
distinguished  what  ought  to  be  distinguished,  and  in  which 
also  the  law  of  progression  was  observed. 

Let  us  however  explain.  We  must  not  confound  two  dif- 
ferent things  :  division  itself,  and  the  announcements  which 
disclose  it.  Manifestly,  it  is  the  first  of  these  things  we  have 
to  do  with ;  division  in  itself  Now  does  division  break  the 
continuity  of  the  movement  1  We  cannot  here  take  division 
for  every  kind  of  division ;  for  then  we  should  have  to  re- 
nounce movement,  all  discourse  being  necessarily  divided 
into  parts  more  or  less  distinct,  and  disposition  implying  a 
decomposition.  To  what  is  Feneion  opposed  1  It  cannot  be 
to  division  in  this  general  sense ;  but,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
formal  division  announced  beforehand,  and  on  the  other,  to  a 
too  artificial  and  too  extended  decomposition.  I  think  he  was 
opposed,  particularly,  to  a  subdivision  founded  on  unimport- 
ant distinctions ;  to  that  perpetual  cutting  up  of  ideas  which 
suspends  at  every  moment  the  progress  of  the  discourse,  and 
demands  at  every  moment  unseasonable  halts ;  a  method  to 
be  distrusted  from  its  being  too  convenient.  It  may  be  ne- 
cessary to  a  certain  extent,  but  if  carried  to  excess,  it  be- 
comes a  pillow  to  idleness,  a  substitute  for  meditation. 
When  truly  one  has  a  series  of  little  discourses,  instead  of 
one  compact  discourse,  it  is  not  a  beautifully-veined  marble, 
but  a  rough  mosaic.  Feneion  spoke  of  this  the  more 
seasonably  inasmuch  as  this  method  was  strongly  accredited. 
In  the  most  beautiful  sermons  of  Massillon,  after  removing 

*  Dialogue  ii.,  toward  the  end,  "  N'en  doutez  pas.  Puisque  nous 
eommes  en  train." 


292  OF  DISPOSITION  UNDER  THE 

the  cuticle  from  the  discourse,  we  see  beneath  little  fresh  in- 
vention ;  everything  lies  in  that  superficial  net-work. 

As  we  have  said  that  disposition,  as  far  as  it  is  logical,  is 
already  oratorical,  we  likewise  say,  that  as  far  as  movement 
is  continuous,  it  is  already  progressive.  It  resembles  the 
fall  of  heavy  bodies,  with  this  difference,  that  we  speak 
not  of  acceleration  of  the  movement  but  of  its  intensi- 
ty.* Uninterrupted  movement  is  always  becoming  strong- 
er. But  progress  in  movement  has  also  something  pecu- 
liar and  special,  as  might  be  said  of  a  body  which,  inde- 
pendently of  the  first  impulse,  and  of  the  tendency  which 
maintains  and,  so  to  speak,  renews  it,  receives  incessantly  an 
additional  impulse. 

As  progress  in  physical  movement  will  at  length  displace 
the  greatest  masses,  overcome  the  greatest  resistance,  so  in 
respect  to  the  increase  of  intensity, — oratorical  progress,  it 
affects  the  soul  more  powerfully,  penetrates  it  more  deeply. 

The  law  of  oratorical  discourse  is  in  this  respect  the  same 
with  that  of  the  drama.  Let  us  keep  the  drama  always  in 
view,  with  its  plan  always  thickening,  its  incidents  and  its 
catastrophe.      Oimiia  festinent  ad  eventum.  f 

1.  But  let  us  pass  from  the  general  idea  of  oratorical  pro- 
gress to  its  different  forms,  and  let  us  first  remember  that 
progress  is  made  when  we  pass  from  that  which  affects  es- 
sentially the  understanding  only,  to  that  which  acts  upon  the 

*  "  All  real  movement  has  its  quantity.  It  is  neither  extent  nor 
velocity  only,  it  is  the  degree  itself  of  its  reality,  of  which  velocity 
and  amplitude  ai-e  only  the  result  and  the  sign  :  it  is  intensity.  Now, 
intensity,  the  degree  of  reality,  has  its  direct  measure  only  in  the 
energy  of  the  cause,  in  force.  On  the  other  hand,  if  force  is  its  own 
measure,  it  is  also  proportioned ;  it  is  proportioned  at  least  to  its 
actual  energy,  to  the  resistance  whicli  it  has  to  overcome.  Move- 
ment is  the  resultant  of  the  excess  of  power  over  resistance."  Ravai- 
soUyDe  r Habitude,  pages  18,  19. 

\  *'  Semper  ad  eventum  festinat."    Horace,  Art  of  Poetry,  verse  148. 


OEATOEICAL  POINT  OF  VIEW.  293 

will.  Not  that  each  one  of  these  faculties  is  not,  in  its  own 
sphere,  as  perfect  as  the  other  ;  but,  in  life,  it  is  not  the  un- 
derstanding which  complements  the  will,  it  is  the  will  which 
complements  the  understanding  ;  thought  in  general,  if  not 
each  particular  thought,  would  resolve  itself  into  action  ;  in 
all  his  faculties  man  tends  to  action.  Facultas  comes  from 
facere^  it  is  the  power  of  doing. 

There  is  then,  in  all  discourse,  strictly,  a  progress,  a  pro- 
gress from  theory  to  practice,  from  idea  to  action.  We  vio- 
late this  rule  when  we  give  explanation  of  a  duty,  after  hav- 
ing presented  its  motives.  The  difference  is  here  to  be  seen, 
between  logical  and  oratorical  disposition.  The  two  kinds, 
as  before  indicated,  are  equally  logical.  And  even  in  life,  the 
explanation  of  a  duty,  or  directions  as  to  the  manner  of  per- 
forming it,  come  very  naturally  after  enforcements  of  it. 
But  this  would  be  perilous  in  a  public  discourse.  The  op- 
tics of  a  public  and  solemn  discourse  are  not  the  same  with 
those  of  a  conversation. 

2.  Again,  in  a  series  of  ideas  relating  wholly  to  the  un- 
derstanding, there  is  a  progress  from  the  abstract  to  the  con- 
crete, from  a  priori  to  a  posteriori,  because  realized  ideas  or 
facts,  though  not  intrinsically  better  as  proof,  act  more  di- 
rectly on  man,  and  sentiment  is  nearer  the  will  than  intelli- 
gence. 

3.  Among  arguments  of  the  same  nature,  whether  address- 
ed to  the  understanding  or  the  will,  we  must  advance  from 
the  weaker  to  the  stronger.  But  what  are  the  weaker  and 
what  the  stronger  %  If  the  question  relates  to  proofs  for  the 
mind,  the  simplest  and  most  evident  are  the  strongest,  and 
presumptions  are  less  strong  than  proofs.*     If  the  question 

*  A  singular  idea  of  Cicero :  He  advises  us  to  throw  into  the  mid- 
dle of  a  discourse  the  arguments  on  which  we  place  the  least  value, 
that  in  company  with  the  others  they  may  escape  detection. 
Ergo  in  oratione  firmissinium  quodque  sit  primum  durti  illud  tamen 


294  OF  DISPOSITION  UNDEE  THE 

relates  to  facts,  progress  is  from  the  less  to  the  more  im- 
portant. If  it  relates  to  motives,  the  question  is  difficult. 
What  are  the  weakest,  what  are  the  strongest  ?  Are  the 
most  elevated  the  strongest  ?  If  so,  Bourdaloue  was  wrong, 
when  in  treating  of  impurity  he  considered  it  first  as  a  sign, 
then  as  the  principle  of  reprobation. 

A  question  presents  itself  When  a  motive  or  argument 
is  incomparably  stronger  than  all  others,  when  it  is  supreme 
and  decisive,  why  pass  through  many  others  to  arrive  at 
that  ?  Is  it  thus  that  we  do  in  occasional  and  accidental  dis- 
courses 1 

Perhaps  not  ordinarily ;  but  perhaps  we  should  do  thus 
if  these  discourses  were  somewhat  prepared,  and  were  not  ac- 
cidental ;  in  the  majority  of  cases,  we  are  confident  that  this 
method  would  be  justified  by  the  result. 

There  are  cases,  doubtless,  in  which  public  discourse  itself 
would  be  acceptable,  if  it  mentioned  secondary  arguments 
only  in  the  way  of  pretermission,  or  even  did  not  mention 
them  at  all.  But  in  general,  and  especially  in  pulpit  dis- 
course, the  point  of  view  is  different  from  that  of  occasional 
or  accidental  discourse  in  common  life.  The  situation  of  the 
orator  and  his  hearers  is  a  tranquil  one;  the  subject  is  not  of 
momentary  interest,  a  question  suddenly  started,  a  measure 
to  be  taken  immediately.  Not  more  is  it  an  excited  passion 
in  unison  with  which  the  orator  is  to  put  himself 

Without  intending  to  maintain  that  oratorical  discourse  is 
a  poetical  representation  of  real  discourse  (any  more  than  a 
letter  is  an  imitation  of  a  familiar  allocution  or  conversation), 
we  may  yet  say  that  it  is  somewhat  ideal.  It  is  indeed  reali- 
ty, but  an  extraordinary  reality ;  a  point  of  view  not  met 
with,  but  given.     The  auditory  is  not  a  known  individual ;  it 

teneatur,  ut  ea  quceexcellant  serventur  etiam  ad perorandum  ;  si  quce  erunt 
mediocria  {nam  vitiosis  nusquam  esse  oportet  locum),  in  mediam  turham 
atque  in  gregon  conjiciantur.     De  Oratore,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  Ixxvii. 


ORATORICAL   POINT   OF  VIEW.  295 

is  a  collection  of  individualities  whose  mean  we  must  calcu- 
late, a  new  being,  a  being  sui  generis.  It  is  not  a  chance 
meeting,  but  a  solemn  assemblage.  Finally,  it  relates  to 
an  act,  isolated  and  regarded  as  single,  in  which  everything 
is  to  be  said,  and  to  which  we  are  not  to  return. 

It  is  said  that,  in  general,  there  is  but  one  reason  which  is 
decisive.  It  is  true  that  when  a  man  is  to  give  an  account 
of  an  action  which  he  has  done  or  is  about  to  do,  we  may  be 
sure  that  one  of  the  reasons  which  he  gives  is  the  strongest, 
that  which  has  determined  him, — that  which  he  has  given  to 
himself;  the  others  are  for  those  to  whom  he  may  wish  to 
commend  the  resolution  he  has  taken.  Why  does  he  not  ex- 
press this  first  ?  or  rather,  why  does  he  not  express  only  this ; 
for  it  is  very  certain  that  if  he  begins  with  the  strongest  ar- 
gument the  others  will  be  neither  felt  nor  listened  to  ? 

But  the  orator  must  give  all  the  reasons  ;  first,  because  he 
does  not  know  which  is  the  decisive  reason,  and  because  the 
same  reason  is  not  decisive  with  every  one,  nor  with  each  one 
always ;  next,  because  truth  should  employ  all  its  means ;  and 
finally,  because  it  is  useful  to  the  mind  to  discern  light  from 
every  point  of  the  horizon ;  for  it  is  not  with  truth  as  it  is 
with  the  sun.  We  have  not,  however,  the  mistaken  idea 
that  quantity,  in  this  case,  may  serve  instead  of  quality ;  we 
do  not  regard  conviction  as  a  kind  of  intellectual  oppression 
in  which  the  mind  is  overwhelmed  by  the  mass  of  argu- 
ments and  the  multitude  of  words. 

Finally,  the  more  suited  an  argument  is  to  move  and  star- 
tle the  soul,  the  greater  the  necessity  for  preparing  the  way 
before  it  is  presented.  The  soul  taken  at  unawares  is  discon- 
certed by  vehement  and  abrupt  challenges  ;  it  is  rather  con- 
founded than  conquered ;  it  cannot  react  except  from  an  ap- 
propriate disposition  imparted  by  what  has  gone  before. 

4.  Where,  in  accordance  with  the  rule  of  progress  or  ascend- 
ing movement,  are  we  to  place  the  solution  of  doubts   and 


296  OF  DISPOSITION,   ETC. 

the  answer  to  objections  1  Should  they  be  introduced  before 
or  after  positive  arguments  ?  We  cannot  meet  this  question 
by  the  same  reply  in  all  cases.  Let  us,  however,  rest  assured 
beforehand,  that  what  logic  suggests,  physiology  will  approve 
and  reciprocate.  I  think  a  distinction  should  be  made.  We 
may  place  before  the  positive  proof,  the  examination  of  the 
prejudices,  presumptions,  equivocal  expressions,  confessions, 
logomachies,  by  which  the  question  is  obscured.  This,  if  we 
may  so  speak,  is  to  clear  the  ground  on  which  we  are  to  build. 
The  refutation  of  objections,  properly  so  called,  is  a  different 
matter.  If  it  does  not  constitute  the  entire  discourse,  it  must 
come  after  the  proof  But  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  be 
clear,  quick,  rapid  ;  that  it  should  be  turned  into  proof;  that 
it  should  be  an  application  of  the  positive  arguments  which 
was  first  presented. 

In  discourses  composed  of  parallel  parts,  there  may  be 
progress,  provided  the  parts  follow  in  the  order  of  their  im- 
portance ;  but  this  progress  cannot  be  compared  with  that  of 
a  discourse  in  which,  instead  of  two  or  tliree  lateral  parts, 
everything  is  successive ;  in  which  there  are  not  two  or  three 
discourses,  in  some  sort,  but  one  only,  one  single  train  of 
ideas,  the  first  of  which  produces  the  second,  then  the  third, 
and  so  on  even  to  the  end,  so  that  the  last  pages  share  the 
strength  of  all  which  precede  them,  and  the  weight  of  the 
whole  discourse  rests  upon  the  last  paragraph.  The  progress 
here  is  as  the  accelerated  fall  of  heavy  bodies,  not  an 
arithmetical  but  a  geometrical  progression. 


\ 


OF   THE   EXOEDIUM.  297 

CHAPTER  n. 

OF   THE   EXORDIUM. 

Among  experienced  preachers  we  find  few  examples  of 
exordiums  altogether  defective;  we  find  few  good  ones 
among  preachers  at  their  beginning.  We  hence  naturally 
infer,  that  there  is  in  this  part  of  the  discourse  something  of 
special  delicacy,  but  nothing  which  demands  peculiar  facul- 
ties. It  is  with  exordiums  as  with  nice  and  exact  mechani- 
cal operations,  in  which  the  workman  finally  succeeds,  but 
not  without  having  broken  more  than  one  of  the  instruments 
which  he  uses.  We  shall  be  able  to  judge  of  it  from  what 
we  have  to  say  concerning  the  nature  and  purpose  of  the 
Exordium. 

Is  the  exordium  necessary,  natural  1  Or  is  it  but  a  fac- 
titious and  conventional  ornament  ? 

I  remark  that  nature  itself  teaches  us  the  art  of  prepara- 
tion and  gradation.  We  approve  of  it  in  everything,  and 
we  connect  with  it  the  idea  of  beauty.  The  beauty  of  the 
skies  would  be  diminished  by  the  absence  of  twilight  and 
dawn.  "  Sic  omnia  quce  Jiunt  quceque  aguntur  acerrime, 
lenioribus  principiis  natura  ipsa  proetexuit.''''  * 

I  remark  in  the  second  place,  that  even  in  accidental  con- 
versation, no  one  begins  ex  abrupto^  if  he  is  free  to  do  other- 
wise. If  we  do  begin  ex  ahrupto^  if  we  hurry  into  the  midst 
of  things,  {rapit  in  medias  res,)  if  we  enter  the  apartment  by 
the  window,  it  is  when  some  circumstance  or  some  word  pro- 

*  Cicero,  De  Oratore,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  Ixxviii.  "  There  is  no  cause  ia 
the  compass  of  nature  which  pours  itself  into  ^effect  all  at  once,  and 
suddenly  vanishes  ;  in  like  manner,  nature  hath  disguised  under  gen- 
tle beginnings,  the  progress  of  more  violent  commotions."  (Trans- 
lation :  Loudon,  1808.) 


298  OF  THE  EXOKDIUM. 

nounced  by  another,  has  placed  the  auditory  at  the  point  of 
view  at  which  we  would  have  it.  This  is  itself  an  exordium, 
and  the  exception  confirms  the  rule.  But  apart  from  such 
cases,  in  which  the  preparation  has  been  given,  every  one, 
without  thinking  of  it,  feels  that  the  auditory  should  be  pre- 
pared. There  is  a  case  in  which  this  necessity  is  distinctly 
recognized.  This  is  when  some  explanation  is  necessary  to 
the  understanding  of  the  subject ;  when,  for  example,  the  pas- 
sage of  the  Bible  on  which  we  are  to  speak,  is  intelligible 
only  from  its  connection  with  what  precedes  it.  But  there 
are  other  reasons  independently  and  in  the  absence  of  this. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  a  certain  degree  of  weight  in  the 
mere  fact  of  beginning  a  discourse  with  an  exordium.  We 
appear  to  have  more  regard  for  our  subject,  when  we  do  not 
approach  it  immediately,  abruptly. 

It  is  useful  to  compose  the  hearer  for  a  moment,  lest  he 
enter  into  the  depth  of  the  subject  with  a  wandering  mind  ; 
now  we  can  do  this  only  by  means  of  ideas  in  near  relation 
to  the  subject. 

But  ordinarily,  something  more  is  required.  The  orator 
should  seek  to  put  his  hearer  in  a  state  of  mind  in  relation  to 
his  subject,  similar  to  his  own.  It  is  with  the  orator  and  the 
hearer  as  with  instruments  which  are  tuned  before  a  concert. 

"  The  reason  for  an  exordium,"  says  Quintilian,  "  can  be 
no  other  than  to  dispose  the  auditory  to  be  favorable  to  us,  in 
the  other  parts  of  the  discourse.  This,  as  most  authors  agree, 
is  accomplished  by  making  them  benevolent,  attentive  and  do 
cile  ;  not  but  that  a  due  regard  should  be  paid  to  these  three 
particulars,  during  the  whole  of  the  action  ;  but  in  the  exor- 
dium they  are  of  singular  moment,  as  by  it  we  so  far  gain  an 
ascendant  over  the  mind  of  the  judge,  as  to  be  able  to  pro- 
ceed farther."* 

The  exordium,  then,  is  a  discourse  before  the  principal  dis- 
*  Quintilian  lib.  iv.,  cap.  i.,  (Patsall's  translation.) 


OF   THE   EXORDIUM.  299 

course,  the  object  of  which,  in  all  cases,  is  to  render  the  hear- 
ers benevolent,  attentive,  teachable,  by  which  I  understand 
disjoosed  to  receive  instruction,  and,  in  certain  cases,  to 
prepare  them  to  understand  well  what  is  afterwards  to  be 
spoken. 

We  remark  that  it  is  not  the  personal  interest  of  the  ora- 
tor, but  much  rather  that  of  the  hearer,  which  is  here  to  be 
considered.  And  hence  the  word  benevolent  is  not  the  most 
appropriate. 

But,  in  no  case  is  the  choice  of  the  idea  in  the  exordium 
arbitrary  ;  it  is  less  so  than  a  prelude  or  an  overture  in  music, 
not  more  so  than  a  preface  to  a  book.  What  is  to  be  desired 
under  the  name  of  an  exordium,  is  not  a  delay  or  an  inter- 
val more  or  less  well  occupied,  but  an  introduction,  a  prepar- 
ation, the  excitement  of  an  expectation  as  distinct  and  vivid 
as  possible.  In  our  judgment,  the  truest  exordium  is  that 
which  has  conducted  the  orator  himself  to  his  subject,  or 
which  is  as  the  height  to  which  the  orator  ascends  after  treat- 
ing his  subject,  in  order  to  contemplate  it  as  a  whole.  After 
what  we  have  said,  it  is  not  difficult  to  discover  the  rules  of 
the  exordium.  If  we  pause  long  on  a  part  which  fills  so  small 
a  space,  let  it  be  remembered  that  no  part  is  either  more 
difficult  or  in  more  danger  of  mismanagement. 

I.  The  first  rule  for  the  exordium  is  confounded  with  the  de- 
finition itself,  in  proportion  to  its  proximity  to  it. 

When  an  exordium  is  not  supplied,  or  replaced  by  an  ex- 
plication of  the  text  or  context,  it  should  be  drawn  from  an 
idea  in  immediate  contact  with  the  subject,  without  forming 
a  part  of  it. 

These  two  things  are  self-evident.  If  the  idea  forms  a  part 
of  the  subject,  it  is  no  more  an  introduction  or  an  exordium. 
If  the  idea  has  no  relation  to  the  subject,  it  is  no  more  an  ex- 
ordium, it  is  a  ridiculous  outwork.*  But  if  the  first  part  of 
*   Un  hors-d^oeuvre  ridicule.     Ft. 


800  OF  THE   EXOKDIUM. 

the  rule  cannot  be  explained,  it  is  otherwise  with  the  second. 
It  does  not  relate  to  an  idea  in  the  neighborhood  of  that  of 
the  discourse,  but  to  an  idea  in  immediate  contact  with  it,  be- 
tween which  and  that  of  the  discourse  there  is  no  place  for 
another  idea,  so  that  the  first  step  we  take  out  of  that  idea, 
transports  us  into  our  subject.  If  we  are  not  bound  to  this 
condition,  we  may  allow  ourselves,  under  the  name  of  an  exor- 
dium, all  manner  of  divergence,  and  take  the  liberty  to  start 
with  a  digression.  We  may  be  assured  that  an  exordium  is 
not  a  good  one,  if  it  does  not  appear  necessary,  if  it  does  not 
appear  incorporated  with  the  discourse,  if  it  gives  the  idea 
of  a  foreign  discourse  stitched  more  or  less  ingeniously  to  the 
principal  discourse,  if  it  leaves  the  hearer  at  liberty  to  think 
some  other  exordium  preferable,  or  as  good.  The  exordium 
is  good  only  in  so  far  as  it  has  been  suggested  by  the  subject, 
as  it  is  born  of  the  subject,  as  it  is  united  to  it  as  intimately 
as  the  flower  is  united  to  the  stem.  Penitus  ex  ea  causa,  quce 
turn  agatur,  effioruisse.^  Gaichies  says  :  "The  exordium  should 
be  excluded  from  the  work,  if  one  might  retrench  it  without 
doing  the  discourse  an  injury."f 

In  all  its  rigor,  the  rule  would  require  the  exordium  to  be 
incommutable,  that  is  to  say,  that  it  should  suit  but  one  sub- 
ject; for  whenever  it  should  not  be  incommutable,  there 
w  ould  seem  to  be  a  place  between  the  exordium  and  the  dis- 
course for  an  intermediate  idea.  We  must  at  least  observe 
the  rule  as  constantly  and  closely  as  possible.  But  it  cer- 
tainly is  not  absolute,  and  if  your  exordium  endures  the  test 
which  I  have  indicated,  if  it  appears  necessary,  if  the  idea  of 

*  Cicero,  De  Oratore,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  Ixxviii. :  "It  should  be  borrowed 
in  a  manner  from  the  main  stress  of  our  pleading,  whereby  it  will 
appear  that  it  is  not  only  not  common,  and  not  applicable  to  other 
causes,  but  shoots,  and,  as  it  were,  flourishes  from  the  cause  which  is 
your  immediate  business.  (Patsall's  translation,  or  rather  paraphrase.) 

f  Gaichies'  Maximes  jur  le  minuterc,  deuxicme  partie  iii.  6. 


OF  THE   EXOEDIUM.  301 

another  exordium  does  not  occur  any  more  than  that  of  an- 
other discourse  in  connection  with  this  exordium,  we  should 
have  no  scruples,  no  fear  of  censure.  Who  would  condemn 
Saurin's  exordium  to  his  sermon  on  the  Necessity  of  Univer- 
sal Obedience  ?*  But  it  is  doubtless  very  well  to. admit  such 
exordiums  only  as  exceptions.  Otherwise  we  shall  become 
vague  and  trivial,  and  make  introductions  which  introduce 
nothing. 

The  orators  of  antiquity,  having  special  regard  to  personal 
interest  in  the  exordium,  which,  consequently,  was  less  closely 
united  to  the  subject,  and  was  less  mtegrant  with  the  dis- 
course, cared  little  to  avoid  commutable  exordiums.  Cicero, 
Demosthenes  himself,  had  transferable  exordiums.  In  gene- 
ral, we  prefer  exordiums  more  closely  united  to  our  subject 
and  our  design. 

Though  the  rule  we  have  given  should  reduce  the  number 
of  the  subjects  or  motives  proper  for  exordiums,  it  would 
not  be  less  excellent ;  but  so  far  from  reducing,  it  multiplies 
the  number.  By  neglecting  it,  we  may  think  that  we  set 
ourselves  at  large  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  confine  ourselves  in  a 
strait.  An  introduction,  perhaps,  might  be  more  easily 
formed,  but  there  would  be  little  variety  in  choice.  It  is  by 
adhering  closely  to  the  subject,  that  subjects  are  multiplied. 

We  may  conclude,  from  the  following  indication  of  some 
of  the  subjects  of  the  exordium,  that  matter  for  exordiums  is 
not  wanting  to  an  attentive  mind,  f 

But  we  remark  that  in  indicating  here  some  of  the  chief 
sources  of  exordiums,  we  do  not  undertake  to  give  a  cata- 
logue of  commonplaces,  from  which  one  may  choose  at 
random.     There  is  always  one  exordium  which  is  better  than 

*  Saurin,  tome  iii.,  p.  1 25,  nouvelle  edition. 

\  HuFFELL,  Der  evangelische  Geistliche,  tome  i.,  p.  286.  Ammon, 
Anleitung  zur  Kanzelberedsarakeit,  p.  2*71. 


802  OF  THE   EXOEDIUM. 

any  other,  and  it  is  that  on  which  the  true  orator  ordinarily 
falls  first. 

There  is  then, 

a.  The  idea  of  the  genus,  of  which  the  subject  is  a  species. 
This,  in  some  sort,  puts  the  subject  in  its  place,  or  marks  the 
place  of  the  subject.  This  is  the  most  common  kind.  *  The 
text  often  furnishes  us  with  an  exordium  in  which  we  proceed 
from  the  idea  of  the  species  to  that  of  the  genus. 

h.  The  approximation  of  the  subject  treated  to  another, 
in  order  to  indicate  the  resemblance  or  the  difference,  f 

c.  Opposition  between  the  idea  of  the  subject  and  some 
opinion  or  maxim  prevalent  in  the  world.  J 

d.  Commendation  of  the  subject,  that  is  to  say,  showing 
its  importance  and  excellence  ;  the  reasons  for  choosing  it, 
sometimes  even  apologizing  for  the  subject  :  Vestibula 
nimirum  honesia,  aditusque  ad  caiisam  faciei  illustres.  § 

€.  Calling  to  mind  a  fact  by  which  the  subject  is  indi- 
vidualized, or  from  which  it  springs.  ||  A  favorite  method 
of  Saurin.*[ 

*See  Reinhard,  Sermons  for  tlie  year  1'797,  Sermon  xvii.,  on  the 
proposition,  "  Nothing  is  more  easily  corrupted  in  the  hands  of  men 
than  religion."  See  also  the  exordium  of  my  sermon,  sur  la  sanctiji- 
cation.    (Meditations  Evangeliques). 

f  See  Saurin,  Sur  la  Cantique  de  Simeon,  tome  iv.,  p.  29,  nouvelle 
edition,  tome  iv.  p.  29. 

X  See  Massillon,  first  of  his  Sermons,  Sur  le  Bonheur  des  justes. 
BouRDALOUE,  Sur  la  resurrection  de  Jesus  Christ,  tome  ii.,  p.  315,  edi- 
tion Lefevre. 

§  Cicero,  Orator,  cap.  xv.  "  He  will  give  the  portal  of  his  har- 
angue a  graceful  appearance,  and  make  the  entrance  to  his  cause  as 
neat  and  splendid  as  the  importance  of  it  will  permit."  (Translation  ; 
London,  1808.)  See  Chrysostom,  Premiere  homilie  au  Peuplc  d'Anfi- 
oche. 

I  See  TuKRKMiN,  Sermon  sur  la  predication,  Das  Kreuz  Christi,  trans- 
lated in  the  Feuille  relic/ieuse  du  Canton  de  Vaud  Annee,  1847,  p.  193. 

Tf.See  le  Sermon  sur  la  Campagne  de  170C,  tome  viii.,  p.  93. 


OF  THE   EXORDIUM. 


/  Relation  of  t^e  subject  to  circumstances  of  time  and 
place. 

g.  Relation  to  the  circumstances  of  the  orator  himself. 
This  is  more  delicate ;  it  is  an  exception.  In  freedoms  of 
this  kind  the  execution  is  the  solution  of  the  knot.* 

h.  An  exordium  has  sometimes  the  form  of  a  prayer,  but 
this  is  a  form  and  not  an  argument  or  idea  of  the  exordium. 
This  prayer  in  its  essential  ideas,  will  enter  into  some  one  of 
the  categories  which  we  have  indicated. 

i.  Finally,  there  is  the  text  and  the  context ;  that  is  to 
say,  the  explication  either  of  the  words  themselves  of  the 
text,  or  of  the  connection  of  these  words  with  those  which 
precede.  Theremin  thinks  that  the  text  presents  matter  for 
the  exordium  already  at  hand,  and  always  suitable  ;  we  have 
only  to  draw  the  idea  of  the  subject  from  the  text,  by  attach- 
ing to  it  a  short  explanation  of  the  circumstances  in  which 
the  words  of  the  text  were  spoken,  and  which  give  them  a 
particular  application.f 

Without  wishing  to  restrict  the  preacher  to  this  single 
kind  of  exordium,  we  also  think  the  text  and  the  context  (in 
other  words  the  nexus)  always  offer  us  the  matter  of  a  good 
exordium,  an  exordium  with  which  we  should  always  be  con- 
tent. We  only  subjoin  that  we  must  not  create  the  nexus, 
that  we  must  not  present  a  problematical  nexus,  or  ascend 
too  high  or  too  laboriously,  or  by  too  short  steps,  the  borders 
of  that  stream  of  discourse,  of  which  our  text,  so  to  speak, 
forms  one  of  the  waves. 

II.  When  we  said  that  the  exordium  should  be  drawn  from 
an  idea  not  remote  from  the  subject,  we  gave  our  second  rule, 
which,  of  course,  was  comprised  in  the  first.     It    must,  in 

*  See  Claus  Harms,  {Predigten  i'lber  dasheilige  AhendinaJil,)  preiyiier 
Sermon  sur  la  Saint-Cene  ;  and  Saurin,  Sur  les  Dernier es  discours  de  Je- 
sus  Christ,  tome  iv.,  p.  55,  nouvelle  edition. 

\  Thi:ri:min,  Die  Besredamkeit  eine  Tagend,  p.  77. 


304  OF  THE   EXOEDIUM. 

truth,  be  one  idea,  one  single  idea.  There  are  two  ways  of 
violating  this  rule ;  one  by  descending  from  a  more  remote 
idea  toward  that  which  is  in  immediate  contact  with  that  of 
the  subject ;  the  other  by  making  two,  m  some  respects, 
parallel  exordiums,  that  is  to  say,  an  exordium  composed  of 
fcwo  ideas,  one  of  which  is  not  derived  from  the  other. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  exordium  was  invariably 
double.  "  Formerly,"  says  Gaichies,  "  two  exordiums  were 
made,  one  to  lead  to  the  invocation,  the  other  to  prepare  the 
way  to  the  division."  I  add,  that  the  first  seems  to  have 
had  scarcely  any  other  purpose  than  of  getting  rid  of  the 
text.* 

HI.  There  may  be  unity  in  the  exordium  without  sim- 
plicity. It  is  necessary  that  it  be  simple ;  that  it  do  not 
reason  or  prove  too  much ;  that  it  restrict  itself  to  the  exhi- 
bition of  one  known  truth ;  that  it  relate  to  what  the  hearer 
already  knows,  or  admits.  In  the  first  steps  by  which  we 
approach  the  subject,  everything  should  be  easy.f 

IV.  For  the  same  reason  it  is  necessary  that  the  develop- 
ment of  the  idea  of  the  exordium  should  be  brief.  By  de- 
taining the  people  long  on  the  threshold  of  a  house  into 
which  we  have  promised  them  entrance,  we  give  them  good 
reason  to  be  impatient. 

We  present  additional  rules  relating,  not  as  did  the  others,  to 
the  contents  or  substance  of  the  exordium,  but  to  its  character. 

I.  The  exordium  which  is  intended  to  prepare,  to  compose 
the  hearers,  suppose  them  not  prepared,  composed.  In  gene- 
ral then,  we  cannot  appeal  in  the  exordium  to  powers  which 

*  See  BouRDALOUK. 

f  Exordium  of  the  sermon  of  Bourdaloue,  Sur  les  Tentations, 
(Careme,j  tome  i.,  p.  1*75,  edition  Lefevre.  We  find  here  the  plan  of 
three  or  four  sermons,  and  three  of  these,  at  least,  after  the  author 
had  already  announced  the  object  and  division  of  his  own. 


OP  THE  EXOEDIUM.  305 

have  not  yet  been  awakened.  Vehemence,  splendor  of  style, 
solemnity,  are  not  m  season  yet,  and  we  must  not  exhaust 
ourselves  at  the  outset.  This  rule,  however,  is  not  absolute. 
1.  In  some  cases  the  hearers  are  already  excited  before  the 
discourse  begins,  and  the  orator  need  not  put  himself  below 
their  level.  Let  him  now  venture.  Flechier  is  judiciously 
bold  in  the  celebrated  exordium  of  his  funeral  oration  for 
Turenne ;  Blessig,  in  that  for  Marshal  Saxe,*  and  Bridaine  at 
Saint  Sulpice.  2.  It  is  one  mode,  also,  of  preparing  the  hearer 
to  impress  him  with  the  solemnity,  the  grandeur  of  the  sub- 
ject. It  may  be  important,  in  certain  cases,  to  deprive  of 
authority  the  trivial  or  worldly  ideas  which  the  subject  may 
awaken,  f 

It  is  the  privilege  of  talent  and  the  fruit  of  study  and  ex- 
perience, to  know  when  to  venture  and  when  to  abstain.  It 
cannot  be  allowed  to  teaching,  strictly  so  called,  to  set  aside 
talent  or  anticipate  the  dictates  of  experience. 

II.  It  is  a  rule  which  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  former, 
that  exordiums  be  characterized  by  modesty.  The  ancient 
rhetoricians  insisted  on  this ;  nay,  even  recommend  timidi- 
ty. There  is  a  passage  in  Cicero  which  shows  forcibly  the 
humble  position  which  the  ancient  orator  took  in  the  presence 
of  his  auditory. 

"  If  you  insist  that  I  should  speak  my  opinion  of  the  mat- 
ter without  reserve,  as  all  of  you  are  my  intimate  friends,  I 
will  now  for  the  first  time  declare  what  I  have  hitherto 
thought  ought  to  be  concealed.  Even  the  best  speakers,  they 
who  speak  with  the  greatest  ease  and  grace,  are,  in  my  opin- 
ion, guilty  of  too  much  assurance,  though  really  modest,  un- 

*  See  ?a  correspondence  de  Grimm. 

f  As  I  have  endeavored  to  do,  in  my  discourse  mr  VEgalite,  {Medi- 
tations evang cliques.)  A  remarkable  example  is  the  exordium  of  the 
sermon  of  Bossukt  on  the  taking  of  the  religious  habit  by  Madame 
de  la  Valliere.     (Comp.  Maury,  JEssaix.  De  VExorde.) 


806  OF  THE  EXORDIUM. 

less  they  appear  timid,  and  betray  some  confusion,  in  the 
commencement  of  their  speech  ;  for  the  more  a  man  excels 
in  speaking,  he  is  the  more  sensible  of  its  difficulty,  he  is  un- 
der the  greater  concern  for  the  event,  and  to  answer  the  ex- 
pectation of  the  public.  As  for  him  who  discovers  no  sense 
of  shame,  as  is  too  commonly  the  case,  such  a  man  I 
think  deserves  not  reproof  only,  but  punishment ;  for  I  have 
often  observed  in  you  what  I  have  experienced  in  myself:  I 
grow  pale  at  the  beginning  of  a  speech,  and  feel  a  tremor  in 
every  part  of  my  frame.  But  when  a  young  man,  1  was  so  in- 
timidated, that  (I  speak  it  with  the  highest  sense  of  gratitude) 
Q.  Maximus  adjom-ned  the  court,  when  he  perceived  me 
thus  oppressed  and  disabled  with  concern."* 

We  prescribe  the  same  rule  but  not  as  a  rule  of  art.  Sur- 
passing Cicero,  who  doubtless  would  commend  modesty  in 
every  discourse,  ( Quce  enim  precepta  principiorum,  et  narra- 
tionum  esse  volueruni,  ea  in  totis  orationibus  sunt  conservanda^\ 
we  would  not  have  the  exordium  but  the  orator  modest ;  we 
even  approve  of  his  being  timid  ;  but  with  this  distinction 
of  Marmontel,  that  he  be  timid  for  himself  and  bold  for  his 
cause. J;  The  first  sort  of  timidity  is  becoming,  the  second 
disparages  the  orator,  and  destroys  beforehand  the  effect  of 
his  arguments.  Now,  as  we  may  be  at  the  same  time  timid 
and  bold,  the  boldness  of  the  sincere  christian  must  ter- 
minate in  bearing  him  above  the  timidity  of  the  man. 

III.  Finally,  I  require  in  the  exordium  clearness,  justness, 
correctness,  purity  of  language  and  style  ;  in  a  word,  I  may 
say  perfection.     In  respect  to  ideas  and  style,  the   exordium 

*  CiCEKO,  De  Oratore,  lib.  1.,  cap.  xxvi.  (Translation  :  London,  1808.) 
•j-  Cicero,  De  Oratore,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  xix.     "  As  to  the  maxims  which 
they  lay  down  with  regard  to  exordiums  and  narratives,  these,  ac- 
cording to  them,  are  to  obtain  alike  iu  all  speeches."     (Tr.  Lend. 
1808.) 

\  Makmontel,  Elements  de  Litterature,  tome  iii.,  p.  323. 


OF  THE  EXOKDIUM.  307 

in  truth,  cannot  be  too  faultless.  The  orator's  position  is 
critical  now,  for  the  hearer,  not  being  as  yet  warmly  interest- 
ed, can  give  his  whole  attention  to  details,  and  the  orator,  as 
yet,  has  been  able  to  do  nothing  to  obtain  indulgence  even  to 
his  slightest  faults.  "  No  part  of  the  discourse,"  says  Gaichies, 
"needs  as  much  exactness,  or  as  much  address,  as  the  exordium, 
none  being  heard  with  more  coolness  and  none  more  severely 
judged."  He  may  be  well  assured  that  the  attentive  hearer 
will  not  forgive  those  faults  in  the  exordium  which  he  will 
pardon  in  the  body  of  the  discourse,  after  we  have  communi- 
cated to  him  our  own  warmth.  All  incorrectness,  redun- 
dance, exaggeration,  want  of  precision,  obscurity,  he  will  re- 
mark, and  nothing  will  he  forgive.  Now,  this  first  impression 
is  often  decisive  and  always  important.  "  The  success  of  a 
discourse,"  says  Gaichies  again,  "  often  depends  on  the  begin- 
ning ;  from  first  impressions,  whether  good  or  bad,  we  do  not 
easily  recover."  *  It  is  more  important  that  it  be  free  from 
faults  than  adorned  with  beauty. 

Boileau  has  said,  "  That  one  faultless  sonnet  is  of  itself  worth 
as  much  as  a  long  poem."f  We  are  inclined  to  say  as  much 
of  a  faultless  exordium.  But  yet  we  may  not  add  that  "  this 
fortunate  Phoenix  remains  to  be  found."  There  are  exordi- 
ums which  are  at  the  same  time  beautiful  and  faultless. 

Some  persons  have  thought,  on  account  of  the  importance 
and  the  difficulty  of  the  exordium,  that  we   should  not   em- 

*  See  also  Cicero,  De  Oratore,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  Ixxviii.  "Principia 
autem  dicendi  semper  cum  accurata,  et  instructa  sententiis,  apta 
verbis,  esse  debeant.  Prima  est  enim  quasi  cognitio  et  commendatio 
orationis  in  principio,  quae  continuo  eum,  qui  audit,  permulcere 
atque  allicere  debet.  "As  to  the  introduction  of  a  speech,  it  ought 
always  to  have  accuracy,  acuteness,  sentiment  and  propriety  of 
expression.  For  the  firstjudgment,  and  as  it  were,  prejudice  in  favor 
of  a  speech,  arises  from  its  setting  out,  which  ought  instantly  to 
sooth  and  entice  the  hearer,"     (Translation,  London,  1808.) — ^Tr. 

*  Boileau,  U Art  Poetiquc,  chant  ii. 


808  DECLAEATION  OF  THE  DESIGN 

ploy  our  thoughts  upon  this  part  of  the  composition  until  all 
the  rest  has  been  written.  This  is  not  our  opinion.  This 
mode  of  proceeding  is  not  natural.  A  good  exordium  pre- 
pares the  orator  as  well  as  the  hearer.  It  is  not  with  this  as 
with  a  preface ;  a  preface  is  less  essential  to  a  book,  which, 
indeed,  may  dispense  with  one.  We  would  rather  adopt 
the  idea  of  Cicero  :  "  Having  weighed  all  these  particulars, 
I  proceed  to  consider  what  I  am  to  say  in  the  first  place,  and 
how  I  shall  set  out ;  for,  whenever  I  wished  to  consider  the 
introduction  first,  nothing  occured  to  me  but  what  was  dry, 
trifling,  trite,  and  common."  Cicero  afterwards  tells  us  on 
what  his  mode  of  proceeding  was  founded.  "  Your  preamble 
is  not  to  be  sought  from  abroad,  nor  elsewhere,  but  must  be 
taken  from  the  very  essence  of  your  cause.  For  this  pur- 
pose, after  you  have  felt  and  surveyed  the  whole  of  your 
cause,  after  you  have  found  out  and  prepared  all  its  topics, 
you  are  to  consider  which  of  them  you  are  to  employ  in  the 
preamble  ;  it  is  thus  easily  found  out."* 


CHAPTER  III. 


DECLARATION    OF    THE    DESIGN   AND    ANNOUNCEMENT 
OF  THE    PLAN. 

If  the  utility  of  the  exordium  is  founded  in  the  necessity 
of  preparing  the  mind  and  disposing  it  favorably  toward  the 
special  subject  before  us,  it  is  idle  to  prove  that  the  subject 
ought  to  be  announced.  Let  us  only  say,  that  it  ought  to  be 
announced  in  a  precise  manner,  so  that  the  mind  may  direct 
itself  immediately,  and  without  hesitation,  to  a  determinate 

*  Cicero,  De  Oratore,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  Ixxvii.,  and  Ixxviii.  (Translation, 
London,  1808.) 


AND  ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  THE  PLAN.  809 

point.  In  this  announcement  of  the  subject,  our  language 
cannot  be  too  perspicuous,  the  terms  we  employ  too  appro- 
priate. The  discourse  here  admits  of  neither  circumlocution 
nor  figure.  Moreover,  we  must  restrict  ourselves  to  a  small 
number  of  words  selected  with  the  greatest  care.    . 

Must  we  also  announce  the  plan  of  the  discourse  1  Here 
there  is  a  diversity  of  opmion.  Some  have  thought  that  even 
the  general  division  should  not  be  announced.  "  An  order 
is  necessary,"  says  Fenelon,  "  but  not  an  order  promised  and 
discovered  from  the  beginning  of  the  discourse.  Cicero 
tells  us  that  the  best  method  is  generally  to  conceal  the  order 
we  follow,  till  we  lead  the  hearer  to  it  without  his  being 
aware  of  it  before.  I  remember,  he  says  in  express  terms, 
that  we  ought  to  conceal  even  the  number  of  our  arguments, 
so  that  one  shall  not  be  able  to  count  them  though  they  be 
very  distinct  in  themselves,  and  that  we  ought  not  plainly  to 
point  out  the  divisions  of  a  discourse.  But  such  is  the  undis- 
tinguishing  taste  of  these  latter  ages,  that  an  audience  cannot 
perceive  any  order  unless  the  speaker  distinctly  explain  it  at 
the  beginning."*  "  The  harangues  of  those  great  men,"  (De- 
mosthenes and  Cicero,)  says  the  same  author  "  are  not  divided 
as  our  sermons  are.  .  .  .  The  Fathers  of  the  Church  knew 
nothing  of  this  method  of  dividing.  And  for  a  long  time 
afterwards,  sermons  were  not  divided.  It  is  a  modern  inven- 
tion, which  we  owe,  originally,  to  the  scholastic  divines."  f 

Gaichies,  though  not  so  absolute,  inclines  to  the  same 
opinion.  "  May  not  the  preacher,"  he  asks,  "  sometimes  free 
himself  from  the  bondage  of  divisions?  Must  he  always 
promise  whatever  he  intends  to  give  1  The  Fathers  were  not 
in  subjection  to  them.     They  proposed  their  subjects,  and 

*  Fenelon,  Dialogues  sur  VEloquence,  deuxieme  dialogue.  (For- 
mer translation.) 

\  Fenelon,  Dialogue  sur  I'Moquence,  deuxieme  dialogue.  (Former 
translation.) 


310  DECLARATION  OF  THE  DESIGN" 

conducted  their  discourses  to  the  end  without  distinguishing 
their  parts."* 

But  the  greater  part  of  the  masters,  many  of  whom  are 
models,  and  have  experience  on  their  side,  incline  to  the  op- 
posite course,  if  they  do  not  even  formally  pronounce  in  its 
favor.  They  admit  only  as  the  exception,  what  Fenelon 
would  make  the  rule. 

Htiffell  starting  from  the  fact,  which,  according  to  him,  is 
very  general  and  manifest,  that  half  of  the  hearers,  espe- 
cially in  the  country,  are  mistaken  as  to  the  very  subject  of 
the  discourse  which  they  hear,  and  carry  away  from  it  only  ac- 
cidental and  particular  points  of  view,  insists  on  a  method, 
the  effect  of  which  is  to  retain  them  in  a  straight  course  from 
the  outset,  to  enable  them  to  anticipate  what  is  to  follow 
from  one  point  to  another,  and  to  prevent  them  from  taking 
cross  paths  instead  of  the  main  road.f 

Theremin  expresses  himself  thus :  "  At  the  end  of  the  in- 
troduction the  orator  may  announce  the  two  or  three  parts 
which  contain  the  development  proper ;  for  why  should  he 
not  carefully  employ  this,  as  well  as  every  other  opportunity, 
to  aid  the  hearer's  attention,  and  to  facilitate  his  comprehen- 
sion of  the  whole  1  If  the  hearer  is  compelled  to  stretch  his 
power  of  attention  too  m.uch,  he  either  slackens  it  altogether, 
or  else  the  effect  of  the  orator  is  exerted  on  the  cognitive 
powers  alone,  and  not  on  the  will,  which,  for  the  orator's 
purposes,  is  tantamount  to  no  effect  at  all.  If  we  do  not 
find  this  practice  observed  in  the  orations  of  the  ancients,  or 
any  announcement  of  the  plan  and  division,  this  may  proceed 
from  two  reasons :  First,  the  method  to  which  they  were 
obliged  to  accommodate  themselves,  was  prescribed  to  them 
by  the  occasion  on  which  they  spoke,  far  more  than  is  the 

*  Gaiohies,  Maximes  sur  le  Ministerede  la  Chaire,  liv.  ii.,  chap.  5. 
f  HuFFKLL,  ITber  das  Wesen  und  den  Beruf^  des  evangelisch-chriitli- 
chen  Geistlichen,  tome  i.,  p.  294. 


AND  ANNOUNCEMENT   OF  THE   PLAN.  311 

case  with  the  sacred  orator ;  and  since  this  method,  especially 
in  the  instance  of  the  orator  before  a  court,  was  almost  al- 
ways one  and  the  same,  it  seemed  unnecessary  to  announce 
it  formally.  Secondly,  and  this  appears  to  me  to  be  the 
chief  reason — such  a  formal  statement  of  the  plan  would 
have  been  evidence  of  study  and  previous  preparation,  the 
appearance  of  which  they  avoided  as  carefully  as  they  sought 
to  maintain  that  of  extemporizing.  For  they  had  to  deal 
with  a  suspicious  public,  who  would  have  attributed  such 
previous  preparation  only  to  the  design  to  deceive.  But  the 
case  is  different  with  the  sacred  orator,  who  may  allow  the 
diligence  he  has  bestowed  with  an  honest  intention,  to  con- 
tinually appear  in  his  oration,  since  he  can  excite  thereby  in 
the  hearer  nothing  but  the  expectation  of  a  mass  of  informa- 
tion all  the  more  fundamental  for  this.  If,  however,  the 
sacred  orator  would,  for  any  reason,  omit  the  formal  men- 
tion of  the  grounds  of  his  oration,  of  the  plan  which  he  has 
sketched  for  himself,  he  is  free  to  do  so  ;  for  though,  indeed, 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  he  endeavor  to  arrange  his 
thoughts  iQ  the  clearest  and  best  manner,  it  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  that  he  specify  beforehand  how  he  has  arranged 
them.* 

Let  us  hear  Ammon  :  "  After  the  exordium  comes  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  proposition  and  the  principal  parts.  It  is 
called  the  partition.  This  rule  is  not  always  followed  in  an- 
alytical sermons But  in  synthetic  sermons  it  ought  not 

to  be  disregarded;  first,  because  the  partition  determines 
the  point  of  view  in  which  the  orator  proposes  to  consider  the 
proposition  ;  next,  because  it  is  the  best  mamier  of  evincing 
the  justness  of  his  division;  finally,  because  the  partition 
gives  the  hearer  a  view  of  the  whole  which  enables  him  to 
follow  more  easily  the  development  of  the  ideas,  and  to  find 

*  Theremin,  Die  Beredsamkeit  erne  Tagend,  pp.  60.  61.  (Prof.  Shed's 
TranBlation.) 


312  DECLAEATION    OF  THE    DESIGN 

more  quickly  the  thread  of  the  discourse  when  in  a  moment 
of  inattention  he  loses  it.  The  orator  who  clearly  and  dis- 
tinctly announces  the  theme  of  his  discourse,  who  at  the  be- 
ginning of  each  part  announces  further  the  secondary  propo- 
sitions which  he  would  draw  from  it ;  who  then  develops 
them  with  care  and  accentuates  them  justly,  will  be  perfectly 
understood  by  his  auditors  without  numbering,  as  some  do, 
each  section  of  his  discourse."* 

We  will  endeavor  to  present  a  resume  of  the  discussion, 
while  we  complete  it  by  some  considerations  which  have  not 
been  indicated  in  the  fore-cited  passages. 

In  favor  of  the  partition  it  is  alledged : 

1.  That  the  attention  and  interest  of  the  hearer  are  more 
vividly  excited  by  it  than  by  the  simple  announcement  of  the 
subject,  (the  partition  is  its  complement ;  the  plan  sometimes 
is  the  true  subject ;)  2.  That  he  is  less  apt  to  mistake  as  to 
the  subject,  or  to  hesitate  between  the  principal  idea  and  acci- 
dental ideas,  or  those  of  simple  development ;  3.  That  it  aids 
the  hearer  in  following  the  march  of  the  discourse  and  in  find- 
ing his  way  again,  if  in  a  moment  of  inattention  it  has  escaped 
from  him.  4.  That  it  assists  his  memory,  and  aids  him  in 
retaining  the  whole  and  the  principal  parts  of  the  discourse. 

On  the  other  side  it  is  maintained : 

1.  That  the  partition  is  a  modern  invention ;  that  the  an- 
cients did  not  use  it ;  that  the  Fathers  themselves  did  not ; 
that  we  have  received  it  from  the  schools.  This  first  consid- 
eration has  more  show  than  strength :  a.  First,  tlie  ancients 
sometimes  practised  and  recommended  it.f     b.  If  they  used 

*  Ammon,  Handhuch  der  Einleitung  zur  Kanzelheredsamkeit,  p.  2*78. 

\  "Recte  habita  in  causa  partitio  illustrem  et  perspicuam  totam 

efl&cit  orationem Ex  qua  conficitur,  ut  certas  animo  res  teneat 

auditor,  quibus  dictis  intelligat  fore  peroratum."  "In  speaking,  the 
partition,  rightly  presented,  makes  the  whole  discourse  luminous  and 


AND  ANNOUKCEMENT  OF  THE  PLAN.  813 

it  less  than  pulpit  orators  there  were  reasons  for  this,  which 
Theremin  indicates. 

Let  us  then  dismiss  this  first  argument  and  attend  to  the 
others. 

2.  Other  kinds  of  eloquence  make  no  use  of  the  partition. 

This  is  not  absolutely  true,  but  if  it  were  we  might  an- 
swer :  a.  That  in  general  they  have  to  do  \vith  hearers  not 
so  apt  to  be  inattentive :  b.  That  the  plan  is  most  frequent- 
clear.  Its  effect  is,  to  enable  the  hearer  by  keeping  certain  things 
in  mind,  to  understand  from  what  has  been  said,  that  which  remains 
to  be  spoken."   Cicero,  De  Inventione,  lib.'i.,  cap.  xxii. 

Quiutilian  suppresses  the  partition  only  in  cases  in  which  we 
would  take  the  judge  by  surprise  or  unexpectedly.  With  him,  then, 
this  suppression  is  but  a  ruse  de  guerre.  Interim  etiam  fallendus  est 
judex,  ut  aliudagi  quam  quod  pctimus,  putet.  "The  judge  sometimes 
is  to  be  led  into  pleasing  deceptions,  and  amused  by  a  variety  of 
stratagems  to  keep  him  from  discovei'ing  our  designs."  But  this  is 
only  an  exception  : 

"  Opportune  adhibita,  partitio  phirimum  orationi  lucis  et  gratise 
eonfert.  Neque  enim  solum  id  effieit,  ut  clariora  fiant  quse  dicuntur, 
rebus  velut  ex  turba  extractis  et  in  conspectu  judicum  positis ;  sed  re- 
ficit  quoque  audientem  certo  singularum  partium  fine,  non  aliter 
quam  facientibus  iter,  multum  detrahunt  fatigationis  notata  inscriptis 
lapidibus  spatia.  Nam  et  eshausti  laboris  nosse  mensuram  voluptati 
est,  et  hortatur  ad  reliqua  fortius  exsequenda,  scire  quantum  super- 
sit  ;  nihil  enim  longum  videri  necesse  est  in  quo,  quid  ultimum  sit, 
certum  est."  "The  partition,  opportunely  adopted,  gives  great 
light  and  beauty  to  a  discourse.  This  it  effects  not  only  by  adding 
more  perspicuity  to  what  is  said,  things  by  it  being  drawn  out  of 
their  confusion,  and  placed  conspicuous  before  the  judges;  but  also 
by  recreating  the  auditory  by  a  view  of  each  part  circumscribed 
within  its  bounds;  just  so  mile-stones  ease  in  some  measure  the 
fatigue  of  travellers,  it  being  a  pleasure  to  know  the  extent  of  the 
labor  they  have  undergone  ;  and  to  know  what  remains  encourages 
them  to  persevere,  as  nothing  can  seem  necessarily  long,  when  there 
is  a  certainty  of  coming  to  the  end."  (Quintilian,  lib.  iv.,  cap.  v.) — 
Patsall's  translation. 

u 


314  DECLAEATION  OF  THE  DESIGN 

ly  required  by  the  subject ;  c.  That  the  didactic  kind  of  dis- 
course, which  is  that  of  the  pulpit,  may  have  its  own  miles. 

We  dwell  no  longer  on  this  second  reason,  which  is  only  a 
presumption. 

3.  The  proofs  should  distinguish  themselves.  Nothing 
more  is  necessary  than  well-marked  articulations. 

4.  The  announcement  of  the  proofs  deprives  them  of  their 
force  in  some  measure,  unless  the  announcement  be  so  vague 
that  it  amounts  to  nothing.  Of  what  use  is  it  to  announce 
that  we  are  going  to  explain  a  duty,  and  state  the  motives  to 
its  performance,  or  expound  a  truth  and  express  the  infer 
ences  from  it  1 

5.  In  refreshing  the  memory  we  connive  at  mental  indo- 
lence. Would  it  not  be  better  to  introduce  the  division  at 
the  end  of  the  discourse,  under  the  name  of  recapitulation  ? 

6.  In  order  to  refresh  the  memory,  we  begin  by  burdening 
It. 

7.  In  order  to  refresh  it,  we  are  led  to  make  symmetrical, 
artificial  divisions,  and  to  prefer  external  to  internal  order. 
It  is  symmetry  which  is  to  fix  the  division  in  the  memory. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  we  omit  the  partition,  we  oblige  our- 
selves to  employ  more  pains  in  giving  the  discourse  connex- 
ion and  coherence.  Is  not  the  best  refreshment  for  the  mem- 
ory precisely  such  a  concatenated  order  and  coherence,  that 
if  the  first  link  of  the  chain  is  raised,  the  whole  chain  is  raised?* 

8.  The  argument  itself  of  Htiffell,  in  favor  of  the  parti- 
tion, leads  us  to  this  conclusion.  He  speaks  of  a  strange 
way  of  understanding  sermons,  especially  by  country  people, 
but  he  forgets  that  the  sermons  so  badly  understood,  are  ser- 

*  We  may  retain  the  division  very  well,  and  not  be  much  ad- 
vanced by  it.  "It  would  be,"  says  Fen61on,  "what  most  frequently 
happens,  if  the  people  should  retain  the  division  better  than  the 
rest.  Generally  speaking,  sensible  and  practical  things  are  those 
which  they  retain  best."  Dialogues  sur  r Eloquence,  deuxi^me  dialogue. 


AKD  ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  THE  PLAN.  315 

mons  well  and  duly  divided ;  for  of  the  other  kind  none  are 
made. 

9.  If  we  should  limit  ourselves  to  the  announcement  of 
the  general  division  of  the  discourse,*  this,  according  to 
HtifFell,  would  not  suffice ;  each  of  the  great  parts  must  be 
divided.     Ammon,  indeed,  requires  this  also.f 

It  appears  to  me,  that  giving  these  considerations  their  full 
weight,  they  do  not  require  absolutely  the  suppression  of  the 
partition.  The  partition  cannot  fill  the  place  of  internal  order 
and  exact  sequence  of  parts,  but  it  may  in  some  cases,  con- 
tribute to  the  effect  which  is  expected  from  well-constructed 
oratorical  discourse.  I  think  that  the  direct  injury  to  the  hear- 
er, from  the  use  of  the  partition,  is  less  than  the  danger  to 
the  orator  himself.  In  observing  it,  I  would  have  him  do  what 
he  can  in  the  way  of  omission,  and  so  construct  his  discourse 
that  it  will  not  seem  necessary.  As  to  the  use  of  the  parti- 
tion, moreover,  we  should  distinguish  between  different  sub- 
jects and  different  auditories.  And  perhaps  this  form  should 
not  be  laid  aside  entirely,  until  we  have  attained  to  years  of 
maturity  and  strength.  It  is  certainly  remarkable  that  since 
the  time  of  Fenelon,  and  notwithstanding  his  objections,  al- 
most all  orators  have  retained  it. J; 

*  See  HuFFELL,  tome  i.,  p.  296. 

f  See  the  passage  cited  on  page  311. 

X  There  would,  perhaps,  have  been  no  objection  to  the  strictures  of 
Fenelon  on  division,  if  they  had  been  expressed  with  as  much  defin- 
iteness  and  precision  as  those  of  Robert  Hall,  in  the  following  ex- 
tract from  his  admirable  sermon  on  the  discouragements  and  supports 
of  the  Christian  minister : 

"  May  I  be  permitted  to  remark,  though  it  seem  a  digression,  that  in 
the  mode  of  conducting  our  public  ministrations,  we  are,  perhaps, 
too  formal  and  mechanical ;  that  in  the  distribution  of  the  matter  of 
our  sermons,  we  indulge  too  little  variety,  and,  exposing  our  plan  in 
all  its  parts,  abate  the  edge  of  curiosity  by  enabling  the  hearer  to 
anticipate  what  we  intend  to  advance  ?     Why  should  that  force  which 


816 

When  we  use  the  partition,  I  think  we  should  restrict  our- 
selves to  the  announcement  of  the  general  plan,  rejecting  a 
more  extended  programme. 

The  partition,  unquestionably,  should  be  clear  and  simple 
in  expression.  It  may  be  useful  to  present  the  particulars 
of  the  division  under  several  successive  forms,  but  it  would 
be  puerile  truly,  to  multiply  unnecessarily,  these  variations 
of  the  same  idea.* 

surprise  gives  to  emotion  derived  from  just  and  affecting  sentiments, 
be  banished  from  the  pulpit,  when  it  is  found  of  such  moment  in 
every  other  kind  of  public  address?  I  cannot  but  imagine  the  first 
preachers  of  the  gospel  appeared  before  their  audience  with  a  more 
free  and  unfettered  air,  than  is  consistent  with  the  narrow  trammels 
to  which,  in  these  later  ages,  discourses  from  the  pulpit  are  confined. 
The  sublime  emotions  with  which  they  were  fraught,  would  have 
rendered  them  impatient  of  such  restrictions;  nor  could  they  suffer 
the  impetuous  stream  of  argument,  expostulation,  and  pathos,  to  be 
weakened,  by  diverting  it  into  the  ai-tificial  reservoirs  prepared  in 
the  heads  and  particulars  of  a  modern  sermon Let  the  ex- 
periment be  tried  on  some  of  the  best  specimens  of  ancient  elo- 
quence ;  let  an  oration  of  Cicero  or  Demosthenes  be  stretched  upon 
a  Procrustes'  bed  of  this  sort,  and,  if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken,  the 
flame  and  enthusiasm  which  have  excited  admiration  in  all  ages,  will 
instantly  evaporate ;  yet  no  one  perceives  the  want  of  method  in 
these  immoi'tal  compositions,  nor  can  anything  be  conceived  more 
remote  from  incoherent  rhapsody."  Works,  vol.  1,  London  Edition, 
1832. 

*  See  the  partition  of  Bourdaloue's  sermon,  sur  la  Fausse  conscience^ 
criticised  by  Roques,  in  le  Pasteur  evangelique,  p.  406. 


TEAJSrSITIONS.  317 

CHAPTER  IV. 

TRANSITIONS. 

As  punctuation,  in  written  discourse,  serves  at  once  to 
mark  the  intervals  and  relations  of  the  thoughts  to  one  an- 
other, so  transitions  have  two  opposite  purposes — one  to  dis- 
tinguish, the  other  to  unite.  They  are  a  kind  of  punctuation 
on  a  large  scale. 

We  may  obtain  the  ideal  of  a  well-constructed  discourse 
from  the  human  body,  in  which  the  articulations  are  only  a 
flexion  of  the  members,  and  occupy  no  place,  except  as  a 
joint  or  a  hinge.  A  discourse  corresponds  to  its  ideal,  when 
its  paragraphs  spring  out  of  one  another  by  a  true  necessity, 
by  a  truly  generative  process,  so  that  each  paragraph  contains 
the  germ  or  reason  of  the  following  one.  The  conclusion  of 
one  paragraph  is  the  exordium  of  the  next ;  but  there  is  no- 
thing between  the  two,  as  there  is  nothing  between  the  stones 
of  a  wall,  so  cut  as  to  rest  exactly  on  one  another.  "  Well- 
cut  stones,"  says  Gaichies,  "  are  united  without  cement." 
This  image  is  from  Cicero. 

But  this  is  the  ideal,  and  consequently,  the  exception.  We 
are  acquainted  with  almost  no  oratorical  chef-d'' oeuvre^  none  at 
least  in  the  pulpit,  that  realizes  perfectly  this  ideal.  Ce- 
ment is  often  necessary.  We  must  often,  unless  we  would 
have  the  discourse  without  continuity,  throw  between  two 
ideas  an  intermediate  idea,  common,  I  would  say,  to  that 
which  precedes  and  that  which  follows.  These  intermediate 
ideas  are  called  ideas  of  transition^  or  simply  transition. 

It  is  certainly  better  to  use  them  than  to  leave  a  void  be 
tween  two  ideas,  which  it  is  almost  certain  the  hearer  will  not 
fiUup. 


318  TRANSITIONS. 

Transitions  have  the  advantage  of  maintaining  continuity 
of  movement,  and  of  suppressing  those  unfortunate  moments 
in  which  the  mind,  not  knowing  what  to  do,  is  diverted  and 
dissipated.  When  they  are  good  they  aid  the  memory  in  re- 
taining the  connection  of  the  discourse.  The  striking  man- 
ner in  which  two  ideas  are  sometimes  united,  is  itself  an  idea, 
which  conveys  and  represents  the  two  others. 

These  are  the  advantages  of  transitions.  But  the  art  of 
transition,  an  art  almost  imperceptible,  is  not  an  art  without 
difficulty.  In  tenui  labor.  Boileau  was  well  aware  of  this 
when  he  said  that  La  Bruyere  had  avoided  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty, in  sparing  himself  transitions.  It  is  this  art  of  transition 
that  connoisseurs  admire  in  VHistoire  des  Variations.^  Some 
idea  of  transition  it  is  not  difficult  to  find  ;  but  some  transi- 
tions are  no  better  than  a  void,  than  a  rupture  of  continuity. 
A  good  transition  combines  several  qualities. 

It  should  be  as  simple  and  as  short  as  possible,  with  no- 
thing harsh  or  abrupt.  It  is  a  contour,  it  is  not  an  angle  or 
an  elbow  ;  but  the  contour  ought  not  to  be  a  deflection.  It  is 
not  a  discourse  intercalated  in  a  discourse.  The  subsidiary 
idea  must  not  efface  the  principal  ones. 

It  would  efface  them,  however,  brief  as  it  might  be.  if  the 
connecting  idea  were  as  marked  as  each  of  the  ideas  which 
it  is  to  connect ;  if  the  thread  of  the  discourse  in  that  spot 
were  as  strong  and  as  thick  as  in  the  preceding  and  following 
parts,  it  would  be  no  longer  a  transition,  it  would  be  digres- 
sion. 

Transition,  nevertheless,  must  be  interesting,  strong  and 
free ;  interesting,  presenting  an  idea  or  relation  which  in  it- 
self is  worth  attention  ;  strong,  connecting  one  passage  with 
another,  not  by  an  accident  of  discourse,  by  a  chance  expression, 

*  Transitions  of  Delille,  {buts,  howevers, )  are  not  much  better  than 
ands,  that  is  to  say,  numbers.  "There  is  in  la  Fitie"  says  some  one, 
"  seventy-six  transitions  made  by  the  word  but." 


TRANSITIONS.  819 

by  a  word ;  it  may  connect  them  indeed,  by  the  extremity 
of  the  idea,  but  not  by  the  extremity  of  the  j^hrase ;  not  by 
the  narrow  side  of  the  antecedent  idea,  but  by  one  of  its 
largest  faces — by  face  not  by  profile;  consequently  free, 
and  not  as  in  Bourdaloue  and  Massillon,  the  result  of  some 
premeditated  chance.  Demosthenes  rather  spares  himself 
transition.* 

When  it  can  be  done,  the  transition  must  be  effected  by  an 
idea,  which  is  a  sentiment  or  movement  of  the  soul.f 

Transitions  are  as  much  more  graceful  as  they  appear 
more  sincere  ;  and  they  are  more  sincere  in  appearance  the 
more  they  are  so  in  reality.  May  we  go  further,  and  say 
that  they  should  not  only  be  sincere  but  natural,  (naive,)  that 
is  to  say,  involuntary  and  purely  objective  1  We  go  not  as 
far  as  this  ;  we  ask  only  that  the  connection  between  two 
ideas  or  arguments,  be  created  without  effort  and  without 
artifice,  and  that  they  spring  from  attentive  consideration  of 
the  ideas  which  are  to  be  united.  The  great  masters,  let  us 
observe,  have  either  made  natural  transitions  or  made  none. 

It  is  needless  to  add  that  the  transition  cannot  in  any  case 
be  said  to  give  the  appearance  of  order  to  disorder.  | 

In  indicating  the  sources  or  objects  of  transition,  we  do 
not  forget  that  we  are  not  speaking  of  ideas  which  engender 
one  another — the  transition  par  excellence,  or  that  which  dis- 
penses with  all  transition.  The  object  may  be  either  to  en- 
hance the  idea,  or  to  to  indicate  a  new  degree  of  intensity, 
or  to  extend   the  idea,  or  to  confirm  the  preceding  idea   by 

*  See  the  discourse  Pro  Corona  ;  see  also  the  manner  in  which  he 
passes  from  a  defence  of  his  own  conduct  to  a  series  of  recrimina- 
tions against  Esehines. 

f  See  BossuET,  in  VOraison  funehre  de  la  Duchesse  d" Orleans: 
"  Le  grandeur  et  la  gloire  /" 

X  Maury,  in  his  Eloquence  de  la  Ohaire,  gives  very  good  precepts 
and  very  bad  examples,  as  to  transitions. 


820  OF  THE   PEEOKATION. 

that  which  follows  it,  or  to  distinguish,  contrast,  or  subordi- 
date  two  ideas,  or  introduce  an  objection,  or  finally,  to  con- 
fess the  insufficiency  of  an  argunient  in  a  given  case. 


CHAPTER  Y. 

^  OF    THE    PEEORATION. 

The  pel  oration,  whatever  may  be  its  form,  is  a  discourse 
added  to  the  end  of  a  discourse,  as  the  exordium  is  to  the 
beginning,  and  drawn,  like  the  exordium,  from  an  idea  near 
to  the  subject,  so  that  the  peroration  has  place  after  the  sub- 
ject has  been  completely  treated,  as  the  exordium  has  before 
it  has  been  entered  upon.  We  hence  see  that  a  part  of  what 
we  have  said  of  the  exordium  is  applicable  to  the  peroration  ; 
we  see  also  that  the  peroration  being,  from  the  place  which 
it  occupies,  the  contrary,  in  some  sort,  to  the  exordium,  we 
ought,  in  order  to  treat  it  well,  to  observe  rules,  in  some  re- 
spects, the  reverse  of  those  of  the  exordium.  If,  following 
the  example  of  wise  men,  I  were  to  express  the  whole  theory 
of  the  peroration  in  a  few  words,  I  should  cite  these  from 
Quintilian,  which,  he  who  shall  comprehend,  will  know  per- 
fectly what  is  a  peroration :  Quae  plerumque  sunt  proemio 
similia,  sed  liberiora,  plenioraque.  * 

We  do  not,  however,  confine  ourselves  to  this  comparison, 
but  shall  consider  the  peroration  in  itself 

All  the  discourses  of  the  pulpit  may  be  comprised  in  two 
kinds  :  discourse  of  doctrine  and  of  morality,  of  fact  and  of 
right. 

They  have  all  the  common  characteristics  of  exciting  to 
some  action. 

*  Quintilian,  lib.  vi.,  cap.  i.  "  Tlie  peroration,  for  the  most  part, 
b  like  the  exordium,  but  is  freer  and  fuller  in  its  manner." — ^Tr. 


OF  THE   PEKOEATION.  821 

Moral  discourse  impels  us  to  it  immediately.  It  is  its  di- 
rect end,  and  its  end  is  apparent  from  the  first.  It  proves 
or  assumes  the  necessity  of  an  action.  It  treats  of  this  action 
itself  and  nothing  else. 

Doctrinal  discourse  urges  to  it  likewise,  but  not  im- 
mediately, or  in  a  manner  distinct  enough  to  exempt  the  ora- 
tor from  pressing  the  consequences  of  the  truths  which  he  has 
expounded. 

These  two  kinds  of  discourse,  in  fact,  involve  one  another, 
and  differ  only  in  the  proportion  of  the  two  elements ;  we 
must  always  rise  from  right  to  fact,  or  descend  from  fact  to 
right ;  the  discourse,  otherwise,  is  not  complete. 

If,  when  you  have  accomplished  your  design,  you  feel  no 
necessity  of  adding  anything,  let  nothing  be  added ;  you 
have  probably  made  a  peroration  without  suspecting  that 
you  were  doing  so.  Massillon  has  shown  judgment  and  taste 
by  completing,  in  a  lew  lines,  the  peroration  of  his  discourse 
on  the  Death  of  the  sinner  and  the  death  of  the  righteous. '^ 
In  some  cases,  the  peroration  may  not  be  distinct  from  the 
discourse.  In  a  doctrinal  discourse  it  is  the  last  inference  ; 
in  a  moral  discourse  it  is- the  last  argument  or  last  direction. 

With  Reinhard,  the  last  number  of  the  division  ordinarily 
furnishes  the  peroration.  We  cite  an  example.  The  subject 
is  curiosity  ;  the  discourse  treats  of  the  inconveniences  of 
this  disposition  and  the  means  of  resisting  it.  One  of  these 
means  is  an  activity  inspired  and  regulated  by  duty  ;  the 
second,  constant  effort  for  the  best  possible  discharge  of  the 
duty  which  is  binding  on  us;  the  third  consists  in  daily 
cherishing  in  ourselves  the  thoughts,  the  resolutions,  the  ex- 
pectations which  become  us  as  Christians.  In  approaching 
this  last  idea  the  orator  exclaims  :  "  No,  our  mind  could  not 
descend  to  the  miserable  pursuits  of  curiosity  if  it  was 
nourished  every  day  with  the  sublime  contemplations  to 
*  Tome  i.,  p.  22,  edition  Lefevre. 
14* 


322  OF  THE   PEROEATION. 

which  Christianity  invites  us,  if  every  day  it  sustained  itself 
by  them,  and  cherished  the  remembrance  of  God  and  Jesus 
Christ.  Our  heart  could  not  be  polluted  by  the  low  pleas- 
ures of  curiosity,  if  we  every  day  reflected  on  our  calling  as 
Christians  ;  how  sublime,  how  sacred  the  duties  we  have  to 
fulfil,  and  what  we  have  to  become  here  below,  in  order  to  be 
conformed  to  the  image  of  God  and  of  Jesus.  Our  mind 
would  not  be  carried  away  by  the  perishable  objects  of 
worldly  curiosity,  if  we  remembered  daily  that  we  are  on 
the  road  to  eternity,  and  that  we  have  much  to  do  to  prepare 
ourselves  for  our  entrance  into  that  awful  eternity,  which,  per- 
haps, is  nearer  to  us  than  we  think,  and  may  be,  perhaps,  just 
about  to  open  itself  to  us.  Oh  !  that  to  this  eifd  God  would 
make  us  feel,  my  dear  brethren,  the  power  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  ;  that  by  this  gospel  he  would  purify,  strengthen  and 
elevate  your  mind,  and  give  you  that  seriousness,  that  wisdom 
and  that  dignity  which  ought  to  distinguish  the  disciples  of 
his  Son.  To  him,  with  his  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  be 
glory  forever.     Amen."  * 

Thus,  the  last  division  of  the  sermon,  that  is  to  say,  a 
passage  which  forms  an  integrant  part  of  the  discourse,  may 
hold  the  place  of  the  peroration.  But  this  so  far  from  ex- 
cluding the  peroration,  involves  the  idea  of  it,  supposes  its 
necessity.  When  we  say  that  something  else  may  perform 
the  office  of  the  peroration,  we  thereby  affirm  that  the  peror- 
ation should  not  be  wanting  in  an  oratorical  discourse,  and 
do  but  vary  the  form  of  expression. 

The  custom  then  of  terminating  the  discourse  by  a  perora- 
tion has  some  grounds.  Let  us  search  for  them.  In  the 
first  place,  the  peroration  like  the  exordium  is  required  in 
order  to  avoid  abruptness.  As  we  should  not  begin  abrupt- 
ly, neither  should  we  end  in  this  manner.  When  we  are 
about  to  enter  upon  any  matter  we  feel  the  need  of  self-recol- 
*See  Sermons  pour  VAnnee  179Y  ;  Sermon  xviii.,  p.  3*72. 


OF  THE   PEEORATION.  823 

lection,  and  the  same  when  we  are  to  finish  any  matter. 
Now  self-recollection  in  this  case  is  pausing  upon  the  total 
impression  of  the  discourse,  or  upon  an  idea  at  least  as  gen- 
eral as  that  of  the  discourse,  instead  of  pursuing  still  the  par- 
ticular idea  with  which  the  orator  has  concluded  :  an  ele- 
vation is  occupied  from  which  the  work  as  a  whole  may"  be 
viewed. 

It  is  required,  again,  in  order  to  bring  together  the  in- 
structions which  have  been  given,  to  compress  them  within 
a  small  space,  so  that  they  may  be  regarded  collectively. 

Yet  again  it  is  required,  that  by  all  the  thoughts  of  the 
discourse  as  by  only  one  and  the  same  thought,  we  may  be 
elevated  to  that  which  is  the  first  and  last  object  of  the  dis- 
course, and  of  all  preaching, — either  prayer  or  praise. 

These  different  demands,  even  if  they  are  not  met  by  the 
last  sentences  which  complete  the  exposition  or  discussion, 
are  obscurely  felt  by  the  hearer,  in  proportion  to  the  interest 
he  has  had  in  the  discourse.  But  whether  he  has  felt  them 
or  not,  the  orator  should  wish  to  leave  him  under  the  most 
favorable  impression  toward  the  cause  he  has  been  maintain- 
ing, and  what  he  may  add  at  the  close  will  not  be  the  less  a 
part  of  his  work,  than  the  exordium. 

Now,  in  indicating  the  different  necessities  which  the  hearer 
may  have  felt  in  the  process'  of  the  discourse  properly  so 
called,  we  have  already  indicated  the  different  forms  of  the 
peroration. 

There  is  the  resum?,  which  reduces  to  a  small  number  of 
ideas  or  even  to  one  only,  the  ideas  of  which  the  discourse  is 
composed.  This  is  as  a  burning  focus  in  which  all  the  rays 
are  concentrated.  All  the  ideas  of  the  discourse  may  also  be 
condensed  into  a  sentiment.  This  may  be  an  idea  yet  more 
general  than  that  of  the  discourse,  an  idea  which  while  it  en- 
larges the  horizon,  not  only  leaves  the  object  in  view  but 
constantly  recalls  it.    It  may  also  be  a  new  argument  which 


324  OF   THE   PEROKATION. 

presents  the  evidence  under  a  vivid,  concise,  and  unexpected 
form.* 

There  is  the  recapitulation,f  a  kind  of  after-partition,  the 
parts  of  which,  being  already  known,  are  no  longer  presented 
under  an  abstract,  vague,  incorporeal  form,  as  in  the  divi- 
sion properly  so  called.  These  elements  have  been  incor- 
porated in  the  discourse,  and  now  when  collected  and  com- 
pressed in  the  peroration,  formed  into  a  bundle,  clothed  as 
much  as  may  be  in  new  expressions,  presented  in  the  tran- 
quil and  firm  attitude  of  established  truths,  which  have  only 
to  show  themselves,  they  furnish  a  peroration  not  only  useful 
but  much  more  oratorical  than  Maury  supposes.  J 

There  is  the  application  or  practical  conclusion.  It  may 
seem  strange  that  this  is  made  a  form  of  a  peroration,  since 
discourse  is  no  farther  oratorical  and  christian  than  it  tends 
to  practice.  But  we  know  that  even  a  discourse  of  this  char- 
acter may  require  to  be  followed  by  some  additional  dis- 
course, in  order  to  appropriate  to  the  hearers  in  a  more  im- 
pressive and  direct  manner,  the  truths  to  which  they  have  just 
been  attending.  This  may  be  done  by  interrogating  con- 
science, by  censure  or  exhortation,  by  promises  or  threat- 
enings.  The  application,  I  think,  should  do  something  more 
than  merely  reproduce  the  idea  of  the  sermon  ;  it  should 
present  this  under  a  new  form,'a  new  aspect,  so  that  this  kind 
of  peroration  may  be  substantially  the  same  with  that  of 
which  I  spoke  first. 

Moreover,  if  we  examine  closely,  we  shall  see  that  every  pe- 

*  See  the  peroration  of  the  Plaidoyer  pour  Louis  XVI.,  par  Lally- 
ToLLENDAL,  Chefs-d^oeuvves  de  V  eloquence  frangaise.     Barreau,  p.  200. 

\  "  It  is  often  proper  at  the  end  to  make  a  recapitulation  which 
collects,  in  few  words,  all  the  orator's  force,  and  brings  into  view  the 
most  persuasive  things  which  he  has  said,"  (Fenelon,  Dialogues  sur 
VEloquence,  deuxieme  dialogue. 

\  Maury,  Essai  sur  r Eloquence  de  la  Chaire,  Ixxvi,,  De  la  Peroraison. 


OF   THE   PEEOKATION.  825 

roration  is  an  application,  and  that  we  cannot  even  conceive  of  a 
peroration  which  is  not  an  application — that,  I  mean,  by  which 
a  nearer  approach  is  made  to  the  hearer,  in  order  to  impress 
more  forcibly  on  his  heart  the  truths  he  has  just  been  hearing. 
The  application  from  being  general,  may  become  special, 
that  is  to  say,  suited  to  actual  circumstances,  or  distributed 
among  the  different  classes  of  hearers,  accommodating  to 
each  the  truths  or  the  principal  truth  of  the  discourse ;  the  rich 
and  the  poor,  the  young  and  the  old,  the  converted  and  un- 
converted. There  are  preachers  with  whom  this  last  distinc- 
tion is  never  wanting.  It  is,  mdeed,  unavoidable,  and  im- 
pliedly, at  least,  it  has  place  in  all  sermons.  The  edge  of 
evangelical  truth  would  of  itself  make  this  division,  though 
we  should  not  make  it.  The  gospel  separates  man  into  two 
men,  life  into  two  lives,  of  which  conversion  is  the  separating 
line.  The  pulpit  teaches  to  some,  certain  principles,  and  re- 
quires from  others  the  fruit  of  principles  which  they  have  al- 
ready adopted.  It  would  fail  of  its  purpose,  it  would  not 
fulfil  its  commission,  if  this  fundamental  distinction  should 
not  be  enforced  by  all  its  teaching,  and  if  its  aim  seemed  to 
be  to  collect  something  better  than  wild  fruit  from  a  tree 
which  had  not  been  grafted.  For  the  purpose  of  the  gospel, 
its  distinctive  characteristic,  is  to  engraft  divine  sentiments 
upon  a  human  nature.  This  fact  of  itself  is  of  much  efficacy ; 
but  it  would  in  general  be  better  to  oblige  the  hearers  to 
class  themselves  than  to  aimounce  this  classification.  More- 
over, although  we  must  be  either  without  or  within,  and  it 
would  be  melancholy  if  man  should  be  made  to  dream  of 
I  know  not  what  chimerical  intermedium,  we  should  not 
forget  that  there  are  shades,  degrees  of  difference,  that 
-among  those  who  are  without,  some  are  more,  some  less 
disposed  to  religion,  and  among  those  who  are  within,  some 
are  more  and  others  less  faithful  to  the  grace  they  have  re- 
ceived.    Let  us  not  speak  slightly  as  to  what  is  essential  to 


326  OF  THE   PEROKATION. 

being  without  or  within,  or  rather  as  to  the  signs  by  which 
one  may  know  whether  another  man  is  within  or  with- 
out. But  let  not  form  conceal  reality,  or  abuse  condemn  use. 
The  application  of  the  sermon  may  then  be  distributed  or  di- 
vided ;  but  if  it  is  thought  necessary  to  introduce,  ordinarily, 
the  classification  we  have  mentioned,  into  the  application,  I 
could  wish  that  variety  of  form  might  render  the  return  of  it 
less  monotonous,  or  even  dissemble  it. 

Finally,  there  is  prayer,  which  is  not  so  much  a  kind  as  a 
form  of  peroration,  or  if  we  may  so  speak,  the  peroration  of 
the  peroration,  the  conclusion  of  the  conclusion.  We  must, 
in  every  case,  end  with  a  prayer  or  by  a  devout  wish. 

A  peroration  may  be  such  as  to  present  at  the  same  time 
all  these  characters :  recapitulation,  resume,  prayer,  applica- 
tion, as  in  Massillon's  sermon  :    Consummatum  est* 

In  whatever  way  we  terminate  the  discourse,  it  is  difficult 
to  do  it  well,  and  more  rare,  I  think,  than  to  begin  it  well. 
We  are  naturally  more  desirous  and  careful  to  make  a  good 
beginning.  Whatever  idea  occurs  to  us  as  proper  for  the  ex- 
ordium, the  text,  the  subject  gives  it.  We  are  more  embar- 
rassed at  the  end,  since,  on  one  hand,  it  seems  that  we  have 
said  everything,  and  find  ourselves,  so  to  speak,  in  presence 
of  nothing,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  we  feel  the  necessity  of 
saying  something  more.  We  are  fatigued,  exhausted ;  we 
dread  a  new  eflTort,  and  we  dispatch  the  peroration  with  some 
common-place  exhortation  or  wish,  with  exclamations,  with 
passages  of  Scripture  negligently  introduced.  It  is,  however, 
an  essential  part  of  the  art  to  terminate  well ;  it  is  at  least  as 
important  to  be  assured  in  respect  to  the  last  impressions  as  to 
the  first,  on  which  the  hearer  may  return  ;  he  is  the  con- 
queror who  remains  master  of  the  battle-field.  I  cannot. 
here  apply  the  proverb,  "  All  is  well  that  ends  well ;"  for  a 
fine  peroration  cannot  make  amends  for  a  bad  discourse ;  the 
*  Tome  i.,  p.  532,  edition  Lefevre. 


OF  THE   PEROKATION.  327 

damage  is  not  to  be  repaired,  and  the  peroration  which  draws 
its  force  and  its  beauty  from  its  relation  to  the  discourse, 
cannot  be  conceived  of  as  beautiful  or  good  independently  of 
that  relation ;  but  supposing  the  discourse  to  be  what  it 
should  be,  it  is  important  that  the  conclusion  should  agree 
with  it,  and  confirm  the  effect  which  has  already  been  pro- 
duced.    In  order  to  this,  we  must,  in  the  peroration — 

1.  Introduce  no  new  subject.  I  say  subject ;  but  I  do  not 
call  a  subject  new,  the  general  idea  in  which  tends  to  expan- 
sion and  enlargement,  the  new  idea  in  which  tends  to  reno- 
vate the  particular  idea  in  the  subject  of  the  discourse. 

2.  Present  a  truly  distinct  idea,  not  vague  effusions.  Let 
the  bed  of  the  river  be  enlarged,  but  let  the  river  arrive  at 
the  sea  entire  and  distinguishable. 

3.  Adhere  to  the  idea  of  the  discourse  quite  to  the  end, 
even  where  we  seem  to  be  throwing  ourselves  upon  one 
more  general.*  It  is  interesting  to  remark  that  lyrics,  which 
do  not  pretend  to  didactic  order,  follow  the  same  rule.  (See 
J.  B.  Rousseau,  Ode  au  Comte  de  Luc.) 

I  give  no  other  rules.  I  will  not  say,  fill  the  peroration 
with  the  loftiest  ideas,  the  liveliest  sentiments,  the  most 
striking  images,  the  boldest  movement.  Though  all  this  be 
authorized,  countenanced  by  the  very  nature  of  the  perora- 
tion, it  may  not  be  precisely  the  object  of  a  rule.  I  admit, 
indeed,  that  if  we  feel  as  much  under  obligation  to  timidity 
after  as  before  proof,  we  should  seem  to  have  gained  little 
ground.f  I  admit  that  though  it  is  never  proper  to  sound  a 
trumpet,  a  firmer  tone  and  higher  pretensions  are  legitimate 
now  ;  the  peroration  is  the  mouth  at  which  the  discourse  dis- 

*  Nevertheless,  Bossuet  connects  the  peroration  of  his  sermon, 
Sur  V Impenitence  finale,  with  this  idea,  that  the  "world  without  as- 
sistance attains  to  the  greatest  misery. 

f  Compare  the  Exordium  pro  Corona,  with  the  peroration  of  the 
same  discourse. 


328  or  THE   PEEORATION. 

charges  itself  as  the  exordium  is  its  source,  and  a  river  at  its 
mouth  is  larger,  fuller,  more  powerful,  than  it  is  at  its  source. 
I  grant  again,  that  the  hearer  warmed  in  the  course,  readily 
yields  to  rich  and  moving  language.  But  yet  again,  all 
this  does  not  furnish  matter  for  a  rule.  Rather  will  I  say, 
let  the  peroration  be  what  it  may.  It  is  not  a  separate 
and  independent  discourse,  it  is  the  result  of  the  discourse. 
It  is  truly  excellent  only  from  its  relation  and  proportion 
to  this.  If  we  may  give  the  peroration  the  bold,  striking, 
impressive  character  of  which  I  have  spoken,  we  must  be 
authorized  to  do  this  by  the  tenor  of  the  discourse,  by 
the  impression  we  see  we  have  made  on  the  hearer.  If 
we  have  something  more  urgent  to  say,  let  us  say  it ;  but 
often  nothing  remains  but  to  give  the  mind  a  calm  and  sol- 
emn view  of  the  subject,  or  impart  to  it  a  devotional  frame. 
Very,  properly  the  peroration  will  often  be  in  a  less  elevated 
and  less  vehement  tone  than  the  preceding  parts.  Here 
again  the  rhetoric  of  the  ancients  cannot  be  taken  absolutely 
as  our  guide  and  model.  "  We  may  recommend  the  observ- 
ation of  this  short  precept :  Let  the  orator  keep  in  view  the 
whole  stress  of  the  cause,  and  on  seeing  what  it  contains 
either  favorable,  odious,  deplorable  or  heinous,  in  reality  or 
probably  so,  say  those  things  which  would  make  the  great- 
est impression  on  himself"  *  Truly,  after  rhetoric  like  this, 
the  judges  would  be  on  their  guard,  and  would  only  have  to 
remain  so.  The  Cumulus,  of  which  Quintilian  tells  us,f  as 
if  the  peroration  was  intended  to  gather  into  a  heap  all  the 
impressions  produced  by  the  discourse,  is  not  necessarily  the 
character  of  the  peroration. J  Above  all,  it  is  not  the  essen- 
tial and  constant  character  of  the  peroration  or  epilogue  of 
the  sermon  ;  the  sermon  may  be  very  properly  finished  in  a 

*  Quintilian,  lib.  vi.,  cap.  i.     [Patsall's  translation.] 

f  Quintilian,  lib,  vi.,  cap.  i. 

X  See  the  peroration  of  the  discourse  of  Cickro,  Pro  lAgario. 


OF   THE  PEEOEATION.  829 

manner  very  different.  It  may  be  remarked  that  the  perora- 
tions of  the  great  masters  of  the  pulpit  are  generally  moder- 
ate and  gentle.*  We  may  compare  them  to  a  river,  the 
waves  of  which,  sure  to  arrive  at  the  sea,  become  slow  at 
the  mouth,  and  present  to  the  eye  only  a  sheet  of  water,  the 
motion  of  which  is  almost  insensible.f 

As,  however,  in  citing  examples  of  exordiums  and  perora- 
tions, they  must  be  detached  from  the  discourse,  the  former  may 
be  presented  with  more  advantage  than  the  latter.  To  judge 
of  an  exordium  we  have  only  to  know  the  subject,  to  judge 
of  a  peroration  we  must  have  seen  the  whole  discourse,  be- 
cause the  beauty  of  a  peroration  is  especially  a  beauty  of  rela- 
tion, and  resides  principally  in  the  suitableness  of  this  conclu- 
sion to  the  discourse.  As  especially  applicable  to  the  subject 
of  the  peroration,  we  may  recall  those  excellent  words  of 
Cicero  :  "He  is  the  man  of  genuine  eloquence  who  can  adapt  his 
language  to  what  is  most  suitable  to  each.  By  doing  this,  he 
will  be  sure  to  say  everything  as  it  ought  to  be  said.  He 
will  neither  speak  drily  upon  copious  subjects,  nor  without 
dignity  and  spirit  upon  things  of  importance,  but  his  lan- 
guage will  be  always  proportioned  and  equal  to  his  subject. "J 
"Discretion,  therefore,  is  the  basis  of  eloquence,  as  well  as  of 
every  other  accomplishment.  For  as  in  the  conduct  of  life, 
so  in  the  practice  of  speaking,  nothing  is  more  difficult  than 
to  maintain  a  propriety  of  character."  § 

*  See  in  the  Oraisons  funehres  of  Bossuet,  edition  de  M.  Villemain, 
the  end  of  the  first,  page  61,  and  the  remark  of  the  Abbe  de  Yaux- 
celles. 

f  In  the  Oraison  funebre  de  Turenne,  by  Flkchier,  the  peroration 
after  a  discourse  wholly  pathetic,  is  truly  what  it  should  be.  The 
same  in  a  sermon  of  the  opposite  kind — that  of  the  Abbe  Poulle,  Sur 
VAumone.  But  especially  we  must  remark  that  of  the  funeral  ora- 
tion for  Conde,  by  Bossuet. 

\  Cicero,  Oratory  cap.  xxxvi.    [Translation  :  London,  1808.] 

§  Cicero,  Orator,  cap.  xxi.     [Translation  :  London,  1808.] 


830  GENESAL  CONSIDEKATIONS   ON  THE 


CHAPTEK  YI. 

GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS   ON  THE   FORM   OF     PULPIT 

DISCOURSE. 

Supposing  that  a  sermon  had  never  been  made,  what  form 
would  the  precepts  we  have  given  require  it  to  possess  1 
Would  it  be  precisely  some  one  of  the  existing  forms  1  Pre- 
viously to  a  comparison  of  our  theory  with  these  forms,  we  may 
boldly  answer,  no.  For  the  pure  theory,  or  if  we  please  the 
abstract  idea  and  essential  nature  of  an  object,  do  not  deter- 
mine the  form  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other  cause.  Time, 
places,  circumstances,  concur  to  this  end  ;  there  is  history  in 
the  form  of  every  work  of  art,  by  which  I  mean,  not  only  a 
correspondence  of  this  form  with  contemporary  circumstances, 
but  the  influence  of  tradition  and  ancient  examples  ;  influence, 
however,  more  sensible  and  more  lasting  in  those  kinds  of 
work  in  which  passion  and  actuality  have  less  place.  Passion 
and  actual,  palpable  interest,  exclude,  in  some  sort,  the  arbi- 
trary and  the  stereotyped ;  passion  and  actuality  cannot  be 
stereotyped.  The  bar  and  the  tribune  may  suffer  the  imposition 
of  arbitrary  forms,  but  they  are  not  slow  in  relieving  them- 
selves of  them.  These  preservatives  may  seem  to  have  substi- 
tutes in  the  eloquence  of  the  pulpit,  the  one  by  the  immensity 
of  the  interest  it  has  to  do  with,  the  other  by  its  majestic 
immutability  and  its  universality  ;  but  no,  there  is  no  compen- 
sation in  these ;  and  mind,  fashion,  or  tradition,  which,  in 
things  of  this  nature  is  a  fashion,  have,  and  always  will  have, 
in  this  kind  of  eloquence,  more  control  than  in  the  others ;  a 
desire  to  please  will  have  more  place  there  where  it  ought  to 
have  less,  and  the  forms  of  preaching,  we  may  be  assured, 
will  be  more  frivolous  than  those  of  the  bar  or  the  tribune.     I 


FOEM  OF  PULPIT  DISCOUKSE.  831 

mean  by  frivolity,  pedantry,  which  is  only  a  grave  friv- 
olity. 

Our  theory  then  presents  conditions  of  an  ideal  discourse, 
the  forms  of  which  answer  only  to  the  purpose  of  eloquence, 
and  of  christian  eloquence.  It  supposes  no  form  more  par- 
ticular, it  has  respect  to  nothing  conventional.  It  does  not 
teach  one  to  make  a  sermon  in  the  historical  sense  of  the 
word,  but  it  teaches  him  to  speak  the  truths  of  salvation  to 
an  assembly  of  christians,  in  the  manner  which  experience 
and  the  study  of  human  nature  have  shown  to  be  the  most 
suitable  for  enforcing  every  kind  of  truth.  This  theory  does 
not  delineate  before  our  eyes  a  particular  figure,  a  kind  of 
portrait  of  pulpit-discourse ;  each  subject,  each  necessity, 
each  circumstance,  will  give  it  the  form  which  it  ought  to  have. 

When  we  spoke  of  the  exordium  and  the  peroration,  we 
did  not  take  our  idea  from  the  ordinary  practice  of  elo- 
quence, but  from  its  very  nature,  its  necessities.  The  exor- 
dium and  peroration  doubtless  are  not  less  rational  than  the 
division  of  tragedy  into  five  acts : 

"  Neve  minor,  neu  sit  quinto  productior  actu 
Fabula."* 

We  have  spoken  as  if  there  were  no  sermons.  We  can- 
not, however,  pretend  that  we  have  forgotten  them,  that  we 
have  no  regard  to  them ;  and  that  we  make  a  form  to  our- 
seves,  absolutely  according  to  theory.  We  think  it  impossi- 
ble that  there  should  not  be,  at  each  epoch,  a  certain  pre- 
dominant form.  This  form  had,  perhaps,  its  reasons  and  its 
truth ;  gradually  these  reasons  are  lost  sight  of,  the  form 
ceases  to  impart  knowledge  ;  the  exterior  alone  remains. 

The  reverse  may  happen ;  that  is  to  say,  time  may  correct 
a  form  which  is  but  little  natural.  Such,  for  example,  as 
that  of  the  schools  and  of  the  middle  ages.     This,  to  Bourda- 

*  Horace,  Art  of  Poetry,  verses  189,  190. 


332  GENERAL   CONSIDEEATIONS   ON  THE 

loue  and  Massillon  was  what  the  system  of  the  classical  uni- 
ties was  to  Corneille  and  Racine.  Men  of  genius  and  of 
good  methods  do  not  meet  at  the  same  epochs ;  methods  are 
wanting  to  men,  and  men  to  methods.  May  it  not  be  the 
same  as  to  institutions,  which  are  also  methods  1  The  form 
of  preaching  has  been  gradually  improved,  though  we  can 
name  no  reforming  genius  of  the  times,  by  whom  it  has  been 
displaced  and  renewed.*  There  remains,  however,  some- 
thing of  the  old  method.  In  greater  or  less  variety  which  it 
has  received  from  men  of  different  individualities,  there  is 
still  a  general  type  in  which  the  form  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, though  softened,  is  reproduced,  (not,  however,  that  of 
the  reformed  preachers  of  the  first  half  of  that  century.) 

The  principle  of  enumerations  and  distinctions  was  in 
vogue ;  the  parallelism  of  parts  was  preferred  to  their  success- 
ion and  their  production  from  one  another,  the  logical  method 
to  the  psychological ;  symmetry  prevailed  over  internal  or- 
der, and  preaching  bore  the  impress  of  the  old  scholasticism, 
and  of  a  superannuated  rhetoric,  f 

We  must  distinguish  here  between  use  and  abuse.  The 
use  is  not  only  legitimate  but  often  necessary. 

But  when  we  make  a  genus  of  this  form,  what  have  we 
attained'?  Arbitrary  divisions,  such  at  least  as  are  little 
philosophical,  and  as  science  never  would  have  supplied,  sym- 
metrical plans,  external  order  substituted  for  internal  order. 

Moreover,  superior  minds  had  protested  against  it.     La 

*  It  is  mediocrity  which  corrects  ;  it  does  the  office  of  editor. 

f  See  Bourdaloue,  sur  la  Fasnion.  But  the  ideal  of  this  kind  of 
preaching  is  realized  in  Massillon's  sermon  on  Conmmmatum  eat.  The 
three  parts  are  parallel ;  then,  in  each  part  the  sub-divisions  are  par- 
allel to  one  another.  Remark  again  this  other  parallelism  of  the  re- 
cital, the  application,  and  the  exhortation.  There  is  scarcely  any 
gradation  in  this  discourse,  and,  further,  the  gradation  is  not  a  log- 
ical succession,  still  less  a  logical  genesis. 


FOEM  OF  PULPIT  DISCOURSE.  833 

Bruyere  had  said :  "  It  appears  to  me  that  a  preacher  should 
choose,  in  each  discourse,  a  single  leading  truth,  alarming  or 
instructive  ;  treat  it  thoroughly  and  exhaust  it ;  abandoning 
all  these  divisions,  so  far-fetched,  so  trite,  so  hackneyed,  and 
so  nicely  distinctive."* 

These  abuses  also  have  occasioned  the  complaints  of  Fene- 
lon.f  In  opposing  them  he  should  have  avoided,  we  think, 
the  word  division^  since,  in  one  sense  at  least,  every  discourse 
is  divided.  His  practice  explains  his  theory.  He  was  al- 
ways faithful  to  it,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  two  principal 
sermons  which  we  have  from  him.  He  wrote  that  sur 
VEpiphanie,  in  his  thirty -fourth  year,  and  in  his  sixty-third, 
that  pour  le  Sacre  de  Velecteur  de  Cologne. 

To  speak  of  the  first  only,  nothing  here  is  parallel,  every- 
thing is  successive ;  that  is  to  say,  speaking  with  exactness, 
the  successive  predominates,  since  without  parallelism  there 
would  be  only  indications  of  ideas,  no  development.  It  is 
a  river,  which  here  and  there  widens  and  moves  slowly,  but 
which  is  always  one  and  always  flowing.  See  the  par- 
tition : 

"  But  I  feel  my  heart  stirred  within  me,  and  divided  be- 
tween joy  and  grief.  The  ministry  of  these  apostolic  men, 
(the  missionaries,)  and  the  conversion  of  this  people,  is  the 
triumph  of  religion ;  it  may  be,  also,  the  effect  of  a  secret 
reprobation  hanging  over  our  heads.  Shall  it  be  on  our  ruin 
that  this  people  is  to  be  elevated,  as  the  Gentiles  were  on 
that  of  the  Jews  at  the  birth  of  the  Church  1  Here  is  a 
work  which  God  has  wrought  to  the  honor  of  his  Gospel,  but 
is  it  not  also  in  order  to  its  removal  from  us  ?  We  should 
not  love  the  Lord  Jesus  if  we  did  not  love  his  work,  but  we 

*  La  Bkuyeee,  Les  Caracteres,  chap.  xv. 

f  Fenelon,  Dialogue  sur  V Eloquence.  Deuxi^me  dialogue  toward 
the  end,  in  the  section  in  which  he  opposes  the  use  of  divisions.  See 
the  citation  from  Fenelon,  page  309. 


834  GENEEAL  CONSIDERATIONS  ON  THE 

should  forget  ourselves  if  it  did  not  fill  us  with  trembling. 
Let  us  rejoice  then  in  the  Lord,  my  brethren,  in  the  Lord 
who  gives  glory  to  his  name,  but  let  us  rejoice  with  trem- 
bling. These  are  the  two  thoughts  which  will  occupy  this 
discourse."* 

There  are  discourses  on  this  model  in  Bossuet,  such  espe- 
cially are  his  orations.  He  proceeds  thus  when  he  can  do  so. 
He  delights,  like  Fenelon,  in  this  dichotomy ;  and  in  my 
judgment,  divisions  into  two  parts  are  ordinarily  the  most 
tasteful. 

What  we  would  say,  is  not:  Choose  such  or  such  a  form. 
This  is  not  to  be  done  independently  of  the  work  itself,  and 
purpose  of  preaching ;  the  form  of  the  sermon  should  pro- 
ceed from  its  purpose.  "It  is  the  mind  that  creates  the 
body."f  Yet  it  is  a  false  point  of  view  which  suggests  the 
questions.  What  can  I  find  to  say  on  this  subject  ?  What 
does  the  subject  give  me  to  say  ?  How  shall  I  fill  this  void  ? 
How  shall  I  divide  and  subdivide,  so  as  to  fill  up  my  frame- 
work ?  It  is  a  false  point  of  view,  although  truly  the  art  of 
dividing  and  subdividing  appropriately,  is  the  art  itself  of 
oratorical  development,  and  the  means  of  instruction.  But 
we  must  say  to  ourselves :  How  shall  1  serve  my  subject,  and 
not  how  shall  I  serve  myself  of  my  subject  %  How  shall  I 
establish,  how  recommend  the  truth  ?  We  must  oppose  the 
constant  tendency  of  a  form  to  take  the  lead,  by  care  to  oc- 
cupy ourselves  exclusively  with  our  subject  and  our  purpose. 
It  is  only  a  lively  sensibility  to  the  real,  the  actual,  that  can 
secure  us  against  formality.  The  golden  rule  is  to  regard  the 
sermon  as  a  means,  and  not  as  an  end.  Our  point  of  view 
is  false,  frivolous,  sterile,  when  we  consider  it  as  an  end. 

*  Fenelon,  Sermon  sur  V Epiphanie.  An  analysis  of  the  second 
part  of  the  discourse  should  here  have  place,  but  this  analysis  is  not 
to  be  found,  and  appears  not  to  have  been  written. — [EDiroHS,] 

t  "  Der  Geit  ist's  der  den  Koerper  Schafft." 


FORM   OF   PULPIT  DISCOURSES.  335 

Doubtless  nothing  can  be  more  false,  more  unworthy  the 
seriousness  of  the  pulpit,  than  to  seek  innovation  for  innova- 
tion's sake,  or  independence  for  the  sake  of  independence. 

But  is  it  hence  necessary  to  postpone  the  consideration  of 
our  subject  and  our  purpose  to  that  of  some  consecrated  form, 
and  permit  ourselves  to  be  pre-occupied  with  this  ?  Abused 
as  the  word  individuality  may  have  been,  I  feel  myself  con- 
strained to  advise  the  orator  to  be  individual.  This  does  not 
imply  that  he  is  to  withdraw  himself  from  general  laws,  to 
forget  which  would  be  to  separate  himself  from  the  commu- 
nity of  mankind ;  it  requires  him  to  acquit  himself  of  his 
mission,  by  being  intelligent  and  trustworthy,  and  by  having 
proper  regard  to  the  impression  which  the  truth  has  made. 
Is  it  not  necessary  that  the  liquid  take  the  form  of  the  vessel 
into  which  it  is  poured,  and  does  this  form  change  the  liquid  ? 
Without  individuality,  there  is  not  truth.  In  art  as  in  relig- 
ion, objectivity,  objective  verity  has  naivete  as  its  condi- 
tion, and  naivete  has  no  place  without  individuality.  When 
we  renounce  ourselves  in  favor  of  another,  that  is  to  say  of 
a  conventional  model  or  type,  what  has  the  truth  gained  1 
We  must  then  place  ourselves  before  our  subject,  put  our- 
selves under  its  power,  receive  from  it  our  law,  owe  to  it  our 
form,  and  while  profiting  by  models,  accept  no  other  form 
than  that  which  the  laws  of  good  sense  and  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature  may  impart  to  our  work.  It  is  evident,  in 
fact,  that  €)ur  individuality  should  be  employed  in  the  struc- 
ture of  the  discourse,  as  well  as  in  all  the  rest. 

Theremin  attaches  the  highest  importance  to  this  privilege, 
which,  in  some  sense,  he  regards  as  a  duty. 

"  A  deeper  penetration  into  the  nature  of  that  life  of  faith, 
which  is  to  be  exhibited  in  the  sermon,  will  give  us  the  fol- 
lowing results  in  respect  to  the  form  of  the  discourse : 

"  The  life  of  faith,  in  every  one  who  really  lives  it,  and  is 
not  content  with  the  imitation  of  a  foreign  type,  is  whoUy  and 


386  GENERAL    CONSIDERATIONS  ON  THE 

peculiarly  his  own ;  it  may  be  like  that  of  another,  but  can 
never  entirely  coincide  with  it.     This  individual  stamp  belong- 
ing to  it,  may  and  must  be  impressed  upon  all  which  proceeds 
from  it,  upon  the  ordinary  discourse,  the  bearing  and  the 
actions,  and  hence  upon  the  sermon  also.     If  this  be  duly 
weighed,  it  must  certainly  seem  strange  that  our  sermons 
appear  to  be  restricted  to  a  single  form,  only  slightly  varied. 
One  who  is  just  beginning  to  be  a  pulpit  orator,  will  do  well 
to  appropriate  among  the  existing  forms  that  which  best 
suits  himself;  but  it  is  to  be  expected,  if  his  inner  life  is  un- 
folded with  something  of  energy,  that  it  will  soon  break 
through  this  first  form  ;  and  for  every  new  stage  it  attains, 
that  it  will  also  create  for  itself  a  new  form  of  discourse. 
No  one  in  this  matter  should  let  himself  be  held  back  by 
traditional  rules,  which  are  often  only  limited  and  limiting 
prejudices,  for  there  is  no  norm  to  be  set  up  beforehand,  to 
which  every  sermon  must  be  conformed ;  but  every  sermon 
carries  with  it  its  own  standard  of  judgment.     It  is,  there- 
fore, an  auspicious  sign  of  recent  times,  that  distinguished 
pulpit  orators  make  to  themselves  paths  of  their  own,  and 
that  approved  men,  as  Tholuck  and  Harms,  in  the  works  we 
have  cited,  impart  directions  which,  taken  generally,  seem  to 
contain  the  demand  that  one's  own  individuality  should  have 
a  freer  course  in  the  sermon.     Thus,  what  is  new  in  the  form 
of  the  discourse,  ought  to  be  willingly  accepted,  so  far,  that 
is,  as  it  actually  springs  from  the  real  life  of  faith,  and  does 
not  gush  out  from  an  unregulated  im.agination,  and  is  not 
a  capricious  device  to  excite  attention.      But  such  approval 
should  always  be  prefaced  by  saying  that  the  earlier  form  is 
not  in  the  comparison  considered  as  antiquated,  and  that  it 
can  remain,  as  one  into  which  devout  minds  have  shaped  their 
thoughts,  and  which  may  still  perform  the  same  service  for 
kindred  spirits,  and  in  like  stages  of  growth. 

"  According  to  these  principles,  a  just  judgment,  in  my 


FORM   OF   PULPIT   DISCOURSE.  387 

view,  may  be  passed  upon  that  form  of  the  sermon  most  cur- 
rent with  us.  It  is  the  one  in  which  we  divide  the  theme  de- 
rived from  the  text,  into  two,  three  and  sometimes  four  parts, 
and  unfold  these  in  succession.  It  seems  to  me  undeniable, 
that  this  method  of  constructing  the  sermon  has  its  great  ad- 
vantages. It  not  only  favors,  but  imperatively  demands,  a 
rhorough  and  comprehensive  elaboration  of  the  subject,  a  lu- 
minous arrangement  of  the  thoughts,  and  it  gives  to  the  mind 
of  the  hearer,  often  wandering  and  weary  in  a  long  discourse, 
a  thread  by  which  it  can  set  itself  to  rights. 

But  this  form  has  also,  indeed,  its  disadvantages.  In 
carrying  an  idea  through  thesis,  divisions  and  subdivisions, 
it  may  easily  lose  something  of  the  force  and  freshness,  with 
which  it  at  first  came  up  to  the  mind.  And  in  order  to  shape 
the  two  or  three  divisions  with  symmetry,  something  of  im- 
portance must,  occasionally,  be  left  out  of  one,  and  some- 
thing unimportant  added  to  another.  Several  times,  too, 
that  is,  in  each  of  the  divisions,  we  begin  from  a  new  begin- 
ning ;  for  we  must  commence  each  part  with  a  general  state- 
ment, and  close  with  an  application  to  life ;  and  this  is  a 
uniformity  which  may  weary  the  speaker  and  the  hearers. 
This  form  of  discourse  is  found,  indeed,  among  the  French 
pulpit  orators  of  the  most  brilliant  epoch ;  for  example,  in 
Massillon  and  Bourdaloue ;  and  that,  too,  even  more  severely 
than  with  us,  since  they  also  divide  the  divisions,  and  formally 
announce  these  subdivisions.  Fenelon,  even  then,  declared 
against  this  method,  and  expresses  the  wish  that  this  form 
might  be  supplanted  by  another,  which  he  proposes.*  Sickel 
has  also  recently,  and  not  without  reason,  urged  many  things 
against  it.f     But  I  cannot,  in  accordance  with  my  general 

*  Dialogues  on  Eloquence,  (pages  96-101.) 
f  Grundriss  der  Christlichen  Halientik,  a  71  sq. 
15 


838  GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS   ON  THE 

views,  reject  it ;  since  I  believe  that  it  has  rendered,  and  will 
still  render,  good  service  to  many  writers  for  the  most  im- 
pressive development  of  their  thoughts.  I  would,  therefore, 
advise  all  young  ministers  to  try  themselves  in  it,  to  carry  it 
out  with  the  greatest  strictness  ;  but  also,  I  must  add,  to  give  it 
up  as  soon  as  they  find  that  there  is  an  irreconcilable  contra- 
diction between  this  method  of  exhibiting  a  subject  and  the 
natural  course  of  their  ideas  and  feelings.  For  such  a  case, 
among  other  conceivable  forms,  the  following  may  be  pre- 
scribed and  recommended  :  Abandoning  any  formal  division, 
let  the  wi'iter  avow  only,  in  a  general  way,  the  intention  of 
impressing  upon  the  heart  of  the  hearer  the  doctrine  derived 
from  the  text.  This  doctrine  may  then  be  at  once  fully  pre- 
sented, without  cutting  it  up  into  several  parts,  yet  as  con- 
cisely as  possible,  so  that  it  do  not  form  a  main  division  of 
the  discourse.  When  the  leading  idea  has  thus  been  brought 
into  distinct  view,  it  is  then  to  be  carried  out  in  its  relations 
to  life,  and  brought  into  connection  with  the  phenomena 
which  are  opposed  to  it,  or  which  are  conformed  to  it,  and 
issue  from  it.  Here  the  whole  sermon  is  treated  as  we  are 
wont  to  treat  each  part  of  it ;  it  is,  so  to  speak,  only  one 
part,  it  is  wholly  of  one  piece^  for  here  there  is  not  that  break- 
ing off  from  and  returning  to  diverse  general  statements, 
whicli  must  be  the  case  in  beginning  each  of  the  formal  divi- 
sions of  the  other  method.  Since  the  leading  idea  is  not 
forced  into  any  such  definite  bounds,  we  can  have  a  greater 
freedom  in  the  transitions  of  the  discourse,  and  are  not  pre- 
vented, by  regard  to  symmetry,  from  carrying  out  most  fully 
the  thoughts  which  are  most  important,  and  putting  each  one 
in  its  strongest  place.  It  is,  however,  to  be  well  remarked, 
that  the  method  of  procedure,  though  apparently  lawless, 
must,  for  this  very  reason,  be  only  the  more  according  to 
law  ;  and  that  the  chief  thoughts  are  not  to  be  held  fast  less 


FOEM  OF  PULPIT  DISCOURSE.  839 

strongly,  nor  the  illustrations  selected  with  less  care,  than  on 
the  other  method.* 

We  close  with  a  citation  from  Herder : 

"  I  have  been  careful,  my  friend,  to  remark,  that  we  do  not 
find  in  the  Bible  any  model  for  the  outward  form  of  our  ser- 
mons ;  for,  what  can  we  designate  as  such  a  model  *?  The 
patriarchs  blessed  their  sons,  enjoined  upon  them  to  walk  in 
the  way  of  the  Lord ;  but  they  did  not  preach  in  our  man- 
ner. The  fifth  book  of  Moses  is  an  address  to  the  people, 
having  for  its  theme  and  purpose  that  people's  life,  a  most 
heart-felt,  strong  and  importunate  address,  ending  with  the 
most  solemn  words  of  cursing  and  of  blessing,  followed  by 
his  eternal  song  and  his  humble  benediction ;  but  it  is  not 
the  model  of  our  usual  discourses.  Thus  is  it  with  the 
appeals  of  the  prophets ;  they  stand  there  as  the  mountains 
of  God ;  who  may  say,  mountain,  come  to  me !  From 
Christ  we  have  sayings,  parables,  in  part  with  their  interpre- 
tations ;  there  are  also  cordial  addresses  to  his  disciples  and 
the  people ;  but  the  form  of  our  sermon  is  wanting.  The 
epistles  of  the  apostles  are — epistles ;  in  some  cases  with  a 
theoretical  and  a  practical  division ;  they  have  become  texts 
for  sermons,  upon  which  we  preach,  but  how  different  is  an 
epistle  from  a  sermon  !  There  then  remains  for  us  nothing  but 
Luke's  relation  of  the  discourses  of  the  apostles;  but  this  is  only 
a  report  of  them,  an  historical  epitome ;  it  has  not  the  form  of 
an  address  vrritten  down  as  it  was  delivered.  So  far  as  I 
know,  too,  all  these  discourses  are  also  different  from  each 
other,  and  which  of  them  is  properly  like  our  sermon  ? 

"  You  see,  then,  my  friend,  the  form  is  not  the  essential 
thing,  the  form  must  be  determined  by  the  matter,  it  is  only 
time  which  has  given  shape  to  it.  That  which  is  essential, 
which  all  the  discourses  of  the  Bible  have  in  common,  and 

*  Theeemin,  Die  Beredsamkeit  eine  Tugend.    Preface,  pp.  xxii.-xxvii. 


840  SELF-CULTURE 

which  our  sermons  should  also  have  in  common  with  them, 
is,  that  they  proclaim  the  will  of  God,  that  they  set  forth  to 
the  human  heart  and  conscience  the  word  and  counsel  of  God 
in  respect  to  our  true  blessedness.  Patriarchs  and  prophets, 
Christ  and  the  apostles,  each  in  his  way,  did  this  ;  this  ought 
We  to  do  in  our  way,  out  of  and  according  to  the  Scriptures  ; 
this  is  preaching."* 


CHAPTER  YII. 

SELF-CULTURE   WITH   REFERENCE   TO   DISPOSITION. 

Rhetoric  directs  us  as  to  the  mode  of  disposition  as  it 
also  does  as  to  the  mode  of  invention,  or  rather  it  regulates 
our  invention  ;  but  it  cannot  be  hence  said  to  teach  us  dispo- 
sition ;  a  too  common  error.  In  all  things  we  scarcely  learn 
more  from  rhetoric,  than  how  to  use  the  resources  which  it 
supposes  us  to  possess,  and  which  we  find  elsewhere. 

It  offers  its  counsels,  and  can  give  useful  ones  only  to  a 
man  of  upright  mind,  of  open  heart,  who  has  disciplined  his 
reason  by  the  study  of  logic,  and  enriched  it  by  that  of  philo- 
sophy, f 

*  Herder,  Brief e  das  Studium  der  Theologic  hetreffend.     Letter  xl. 

•j-  Cicero  recommends  philosophy  less  for  that  which  it  contains, 
and  that  which  it  imparts,  than  as  gymnastics  for  the  mind.  Positum 
sit  in  primis,  sine  philosophia  non  posse  effici,  quam  quceriynus,  eloquent- 
em  ;  non  ut  in  ea  tamen  omnia  sint,  sed  ut  sic  adjuvet  ut  palcestra  his- 
trionem. 

"  We  may  therefore  consider  it  as  a  capital  maxim,  that  the  eloquent 
speaker  we  are  inquiring  after,  cannot  be  formed  without  the  assistance 
of  philosophy.     I  do  not  mean  that  this  alone  is  sufficient,  but  only  that 


WITH  KEFERENCE  TO  DISPOSITION.  841 

Eloquence  penetrates  into  science  and  life  by  a  multitude 
of  roots. 

Considering  the  disposition  of  the  greater  part  of  the  ser- 
mons which  we  hear,  a  disposition  ordinarily  exact  and  ac- 
cording to  rule,  we  may  be  inclined  to  think  that  disposition 
is  not  a  great  mystery,  and  that  good  sense  and  a  little  use 
would  here  be  sufficient. 

But  all  do  not  so  easily  succeed,  and  it  is  remarkable 
that  the  aptitude  for  disposition  seems  to  be  wanting  in  those 
who  have  at  once  too  many  and  too  few  ideas  ;*  success  in 
disposition  is  best  attained,  with  a  mind  sufficiently  just,  in 
the  higher  and  lower  spheres  of  thought.  With  very  few  or 
with  many  ideas,  we  have  clear  dispositions.  But  this  clear- 
ness is  profound  with  some,  superficial  with  others ;  this  order 
with  some  is  more  external,  more  internal  with  others;  it  has 
force,  it  has  power  with  the  first,  it  has  not  with  the  second ; 
it  is  eloquent  or  it  is  not,  for  oratorical  genius  shows  itself 
in  disposition. 

Now,  the  object  is  not  to  do  well  only,  but  to  do  better  ; 
and  we  really  do  well  only  when  we  endeavor  to  do  better. 
Disposition  may  be  more  or  less  philosophical,  more  or  less 
oratorical ;  discourse,  more  or  less  compact,  formed  of  pieces 
fitted  to  each  other  or  melted  into  bronze,  creaking  in  the 
joints  or  playing  with  grace  and  ease ;  broken  by  that  which 
should  join  it,  or  joined  by  that  which  seems  to  separate  it, 
continuous  or  a  miere  patchwork. 

To  attain  to  the  best  possible,  more  and  better  practice  and 
experience  are  necessary.     Practice  should  be  accompanied 

it  will  contribute  to  improve  him  in  the  same  manner  as  the  palcestra 
does  an  actor.  {Orator,  cap.  iv.  Translation:  London,  1808.)  It  does 
more. 

*  We  often  meet  -with  such  persons  :  they  know  almost  everything, 
and  yet  they  have  very  little  true  knowledge,  for  want  of  an  apti- 
tude for  generalization. — Tr. 


842  SELF-CULTUEE,   ETC. 

by,  and  should  provoke  meditation  ;  we  should  give  thought 
to  our  modes  of  procedure,  remark  our  faults,  turn  them  to 
our  advantage,  interrogate  our  intellectual  conscience. 

I  will  say  to  those  who  have  time  :  Be  not  vain  of  a  foolish 
rapidity  ;  do  again  what  you  have  done ;  regard  a  first  ef- 
fort only  as  a  trial  of  your  strength,  a  rough  draft  of  what 
you  have  in  hand.  Later,  when  you  shall  be  in  the  bustle 
and  hurry  of  active  life,  in  vain  will  it  be  said  to  you : 

"  Travaillez  a  loisir,  quelque  ordre  qui  vous  presse,"  * 

for  the  order  which  will  press  you  will  not  comport  with  leis- 
ure, and  you  will  have  to  substitute  intensity  for  length  in 
your  work.  But  in  the  time  of  study  and  preparation,  and 
as  long  as  you  can  do  so,  work  as  an  artist,  the  practical  man 
will  have  his  turn.  By  one  trial  after  another  see  how  you 
may  better  arrange,  better  fuse  together  the  different  ele- 
ments of  your  work.  Be  not  deceived,  if  a  first  attempt 
has  succeeded,  and  succeeded  so  well  that  you  do  not  return 
to  it  ;  it  was  from  a  strong  internal  labor  which  had  preceded 
it ;  the  force  of  this  internal  labor  has  supplied  everything,  and 
perhaps  in  the  secret  of  meditation,  many  plans  had  given  place 
to  one  another. 

Finally,  study  models ;  analyze  their  method  ;  endeavor 
to  rival  them  ;  on  the  same  subjects,  compare  models  with 
models.  But  be  sure  that  the  subjects  are  the  same  ;  and  not 
different  subjects  under  the  same  names ;  thus  in  Bourda- 
loue  and  in  Saurin,  the  phrase.  The  Word  of  God^  does  not 
express  the  same  subject. 

*  BoiLEAU,  L'Art  Foetique,  chant  i.  "  Work  leisurely  whatever 
order  presses  you." 


X 


PART  III. 

ELOCUTION. 


CHAPTER  I. 

OF   ELOCUTION   IN   GENEKAL. 

You  have  chosen  the  arguments  or  principal  ideas  of  your 
discourse ;  you  have,  by  the  same  effort  or  b}^  a  subse- 
quent operation,  classified,  arranged  these  materials  in  your 
mind  ;  it  remains  for  you  to  give  a  form  and  a  body  to  the 
results  of  these  first  two  operations,  that  your  thoughts  on  the 
subject  may  become  the  thoughts  of  others.  It  remains  to 
you,  in  a  word,  to  write  your  discourse.  This  work  is  now 
to  receive  our  attention. 

This  idea  of  writing,  is  less  simple  than  it  may  seem  at 
first.  Is  writing  simply  expressing  in  words  the  ideas  and 
relations  of  which  the  two  preceding  operations  have  put  us 
in  possession  1  No  one  thinks  so.  A  discourse  reduced  to 
this,  strictly,  is  an  analysis,  and  no  more  a  discourse.  But 
if  writing  is  something  more  than  expressing  in  language  the 
ideas  which  have  been  furnished  to  us  by  the  twofold  labor 
of  invention  and  disposition,  is  wi'iting  still  thinking,  still  in- 
venting, still  arranging  1     Writing  is  in  truth  all  these. 

The  work  of  style,  properly  understood,  is  but  a  prolonga- 
tion of  the  two  former  works,  of  which  one  is  called  invention, 


844  OF  ELOCUTION    IN  GENERAL. 

the  other  disjjosition.  Writing  is  still  and  always  inventing 
and  disposing.  Does  not  an  image  include  an  idea  ?  Is  not 
a  name  a  judgment  ?  Is  not  the  law  of  order  and  of  grada- 
tion followed  even  in  details  ?  Is  not  a  paragraph,  not  to  say 
a  phrase,  a  real  discourse  ? 

As  invention  and  disposition  re-appear  on  a  small  scale,  in 
phrases  and  even  in  incidents,  so  elocution  has  place  in  the 
first  rudiments  of  discourse,  and  even,  so  to  speak,  in  the 
table  of  contents.  It  displays,  however,  all  the  characters 
of  which  it  is  susceptible,  only  in  the  development  and  the 
ramifications  of  the  thought.  Elocution  is  thought  still,  but 
on  its  surface  or  at  its  extremities.  Here  appears  the  whole 
importance  of  elocution.  The  simple  announcement  of  the 
chief  heads  of  the  discourse,  does  little  to  enlighten  and  move 
the  generality  of  the  hearers.  It  is  by  the  jDarticular  ideas 
that  they  are  immediately  impressed.  It  is  with  general 
ideas  as  with  sapid  and  nutritious  substances — they  must  be 
decomposed  and  mixed  together  in  the  mouth,  in  order  to 
give  us  the  sensation  of  taste ;  they  must  pass  into  the  stomach 
and  there  be  decomposed  in  another  manner,  in  order  to 
nourish  the  body.  Thus,  m  general,  we  acquire  the  taste  of 
truth,  and  it  becomes  nourishment  to  us  only  through  its 
parts.  To  use  another  expression,  would  the  larger  blood- 
vessels of  the  body  fulfil  their  purpose,  if  they  were  not  rami- 
fied and  attenuated  indefinitely,  in  order  to  moisten  and  sat- 
urate the  flesh  1  Elocution,  then,  has  the  two-fold  function 
of  clothing  the  thought  with  words,  and  of  decomposing  the 
truth  so  as  to  bring  it  into  more  immediate  and  sensible  con- 
tact with  us.  But,  at  any  rate,  the  work  of  style  is  a  work 
of  thought,  and  the  direct  complement  of  what,  in  the  pre- 
paration of  a  discourse,  is  especially  considered  as  appertain- 
ing to  thought. 

But  it  will  be  said  :  Is  there  not  always  this  difference,  that 
we  invent  and  arrange  without  words,  while  elocution  con- 


OF   ELOCUTION   IN   GENEEAL.  845 

sists  precisely  in  the  use  of  words  1  But  in  the  first  place, 
it  is  not  certain  that  we  invent  and  arrange  without  the  use 
of  words.  If,  as  I  have  said,  every  name  is  a  judgment, 
every  judgment  is  also  a  name.  And  then,  what  if  elocu- 
tion does  make  a  more  distinct  use  of  these  signs,  without 
which  it  is  nothing,  provided  the  choice  and  arrangement  of 
these  signs  is  a  labor  of  the  mind  ?  What  would  style  he  if 
it  were  not  this  ?  We  ask  what  would  a  word  be  if  it  did  not 
express  an  idea  ?  The  choice  of  words,  the  choice  of  forms, 
is  from  the  thought  or  it  is  nothing.  There  is  no  essential 
difference  between  this  part  of  the  art  and  the  two  others. 
The  signs  appear  more  distinctly,  and  this  is  the  whole. 

"  To  write  well,"  says  Buffon,  "  is  at  once  to  think  well,  to 
feel  well  and  to  render  well ;  it  is  to  have  at  the  same  time, 
mind  soul  and  taste ;  style  requires  the  combination  and  ex- 
ercise of  all  the  intellectual  faculties ;  ideas  alone  form  the 
ground-work  of  style ;  the  harmony  of  words  is  but  its  ac- 
cessory."* 

Though  the  principal  ideas  of  the  discourse  are  as  to  its 
purpose,  the  most  important,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
ideas  which  we  employ  in  the  labor  of  elocution,  the  ideas 
which  constitute  the  style,  are  of  an  elevated,  delicate  char- 
acter, and  in  certain  subjects,  superior  to  the  ideas  which  it  is 
the  object  of  the  discourse  to  unfold.  "  A  fine  style,"  says 
Buffon,  again^  "  is  such  only  by  the  infinite  number  of  the 
truths  which  it  presents.  The  intellectual  excellences  which 
it  contains,  all  the  relations  of  which  it  consists,  are  so  many 
truths  not  less  useful,  and  perhaps  of  more  value  to  the  hu- 
man mind,  than  those  which  may  form  the  foundation  of  the 
subject."!  ^^  ^^^  f^^  from  giving  other  truths  precedence, 
or  equal  rank  to  those  of  the  gospel ;  but  Buflbn  speaks  only 
of  the  human  mind,  and  within  this  limit,  what  he  says  is 
equally  true  and  profound. 

*  Buffon,  Biscours  sur  le  Style.  \  Ibid. 

15* 


346  OF  ELOCUTION  IN  GENEEAL. 

This,  however,  is  not  a  point  of  view  of  immediate  im- 
portance to  us,  in  the  question  we  are  engaged  in,  and  we 
confine  ourselves  to  what  has  been  before  indicated.     If  it  is 
true  that  the  relation  of  elocution  to  discourse  is  analogous 
to  that  of  the  countenance  or  the  hands  to  the  human  body, 
we  see  what  is  its  importance  and  what  also  is  its  difficulty. 
It  would  be  otherwise,  if  we  had  regard  simply  to  diction,  but 
what  we  have  to  do  with  is  style  ;  diction  is  not  the  whole 
man,  while  the  whole  man  is  in  the  style,  or  as  Buffon  says, 
"the   style   is   the  man   himself."*     Perhaps  style  is   not 
merely,  as  this  author  maintains,  the  order  and  movement 
which  a   writer  gives  to  his  thoughts,  but  this  order  and 
movement  form  part  of  the  style.     Style,  then,  is  a  great 
matter,  and   even  those  who  do   not   apprehend   fully  the 
reason   of  Cicero's  thought,  are   not  surprised  that  he  ex- 
presses himself  in  this  manner  :  "  It  is  a  great  matter  to  know 
what  to  say  and  in  what  order  to  say  it ;  but  to  know  how 
to  say  it  is  a  greater  matter  still."f     If  style  is  from  thought, 
it  would  seem,  that  what  makes  a  good  mind  will  make  a 
good  writer,  and  that  neither  would  a  bad  mind  be  found  to 
write  well ;  nor,  especially,  a  good  mind  to  write  badly.     It 
is  certain  that  the  great  attributes  of  style  are  foreign  to  a 
feeble  or  badly-constructed  mind ;  simple  elegance,  an  ele- 
gance wholly  external,  is  within  its  reach;  but  how  many 
men  are  there  who  know  how  to  think  that  do  not  know  how 
to  write  %     These  two  branches  proceed  from  the  same  stem 
with  an  unequal  force.     In  order  to  write  well  we  must  think 
well,  but  something  more  is  necessary.     Why  should  we  be 
surprised  %     Is  it  surprising  that  a  man  who  can  walk  very 
well  does  not  know  how  to  dance ;  that  a  man  who  speaks 
agreeably  is  not  able  to  sing  ?     There  may  be  either  a  defect 
of  some  ulterior  quality,  or  of  two  arts,  which  are  related  to 
each  other,  only  the  first  has  been  studied.     By  cultivating 

*  Buffon,  THscours  s^ir  le  Style.  f  Cicero,  Orator,  cap.  xvi. 


OF  ELOCUTION   IN   GENEEAL.  347 

the  art  of  inventing  and  of  distributing  a  matter,  we  are  pre- 
pared to  write  well,  but  we  are  prepared  only ;  and  elocu- 
tion or  style  is  the  object  of  a  separate  study.  Language, 
however,  or  the  matter  of  style,  is  wholly  independent  of  the 
WTiter.  It  is  with  language  as  with  a  violin  ;  we  must  learn 
to  play  it.  One  does  not  come  into  the  world  with  skill  to 
handle  the  bow. 

It  certainly  seems  strange  that  a  man  who  thinks  well 
naturally,  should  hardly  have  reached  a  certain  limit,  before 
he  all  at  once  ceases  to  think  well,  and  that  he  who  has 
power  for  the  greater,  should  have  none  for  the  less — this,  if 
you  please,  is  strange,  but  so  it  is.  The  same  mind  has  not 
its  thought  equally  at  ease  in  all  departments,  even  as  the 
same  man's  chest  is  not  equally  at  ease  in  all  atmospheres. 
Although  writing  be  thinking,  still  one  may  think  well  and 
write  badly. 

We  would  more  readily  accept  this  idea  if  we  considered 
style  in  its  inferior  parts  or  its  last  details,  confounding  it 
with  diction  ;  for  there  is  as  to  these  things  a  sense^  which 
may  not  have  been  given  to  all  good  minds.  But  it  must  be 
admitted  that  it  is  also  true  of  the  higher  parts  of  elocution, 
of  style,  properly  so  called,  in  which  we  are  much  nearer  to 
invention  and  disposition,  much  nearer  to  thought,  properly 
so  called.  Style,  even  in  this  view,  is  a  separate  excellence, 
a  separate  quality. 

But,  though  I  admit  that  we  may,  in  a  certain  sense, 
think  well,  and  write  badly,  may  I  as  readily  admit  that  one 
may  think  badly,  and  yet  write  well  1  Yes,  I  may  also  ad- 
mit this,  if  I  reduce  loriting  well,  to  its  most  external  parts, 
and  to  the  minutest  details  of  elocution.  But  good  style, 
taking  this  word  in  its  full  signification,  style  in  the  sense  in 
which  we  may  say  it  is  the  man  himself,  belongs  only  to  the 
man  who  thinks  well  and  powerfully. 


348  OF   ELOCUTION   IN    GENERAL. 

"  Scribendi  recte  sapere  est  et  principium  et  fons,"* 

says  Horace  ;  and  Cicero  has  said  :  "  Sed  est  eloquentise, 
sicut  reliquarum  rerum,  fundamentum  Sapientia."!  Many 
works  are  well  thought  which  are  badly  written ;  but  all 
works  truly  remarkable  in  respect  of  style,  are  more  or  less 
so  in  respect  of  thought. 

We  may  infer  from  all  this,  that  the  preacher,  unless  he 
may  neglect  and  despise  art  on  principle,  should  bestow  a 
good  portion  of  his  attention  on  style.  For  style  is  a  good 
portion  of  his  total  work,  yet  a  work  distinct,  which  demands 
separate  aptitude  and  separate  efforts. 

Some  are  scrupulous  as  to  this  application.  They  ques- 
tion whether  it  becomes  the  most  serious  of  writers,  the 
preacher,  to  make  elocution  or  the  art  of  writing,  a  special 
study  1  If  the  question  were  not  repeated  every  day,  we 
would  not  raise  it.  Why  should  this  study  be  unworthy  of 
a  serious  man,  if  style  is  thought  still,  if  the  pains  bestowed 
upon  expression  are  but  the  necessary  complement  of  the 
labor  of  thought,  if  that  serious  thought  which  is  our  whole 
concern,  can  reach  the  mind  of  our  hearers  completely  and 
with  all  its  advantages,  only  when  it  is  well  expressed  1 

For  this  is  our  point  of  view  ;  and  our  doctrine,  though  in 
one  sense  very  elevated,  is  entirely  utilitarian.  Even  in  the 
province  of  pure  literature,  we  eschew  the  doctrine  of  art 
for  the  sake  of  art ;  how  much  more  in  the  province  of  elo- 
quence, and  especially  of  christian  eloquence.  If  poetry  it- 
self repels  with  alarm  this  sterile  doctrine,  eloquence,  the 
purpose  of  which  is  practical,  repels  it  much  more.  All  arts, 
I  admit,  demand  a  noble  disinterestedness  of  thought,  aspire 
to  pure  idea ;  but  this  does  not  imply  that  art,  in  order  to  be 
pure,  should  be  absorbed  in  occupation  with  form.     "  How 

*  Horace,  Art  of  Poetry,  verse  309. 
f  CicEuo,    Orator,  cap.  xxi. 


OF   ELOCUTION   IN   GENERAL.  349 

can  it  gain  anything  by  being  false  to  its  origin  1  Does  it 
not  exist  as  a  means  before  it  is  offered  as  an  end  ?  Do  we 
seek  first,  ideas  for  expressions,  or  expression  for  an  idea  1 
To  the  view  of  human  consciousness  what  then  is  art  sepa- 
rated from  its  object,  or  when  its  object  is  made  a  mere  oc- 
casion ?  Placed  on  this  foundation,  it  is  certain  that  art  as 
art,  perishes,  and  that  the  exclusive  study  of  form  destroys 
form  itself.  Literary  teaching  when  obliged  to  treat  of  form 
separately,  to  concentrate  attention  for  years  on  words  and 
phrases;  the  greatest  reputation  of  literary  success;  the 
highest  charm  of  works  in  which  the  pursuit  of  form  neces- 
sarily has  much  place  ;  all  this,  directed  seemingly  in  favor 
of  art,  has  too  often  no  other  effect  than  to  attenuate  and  re- 
lax it.  Vigorous  thinking,  solid  sense,  are  the  first  condi- 
tions of  art ;  and,  as  has  been  very  well  said,  it  is  only  com- 
pact substances  that  are  susceptible  of  a  fine  polish." 
—  But  how  much  more  true  is  all  this  of  eloquence,  and  par- 
ticularly of  the  eloquence  of  the  pulpit.  The  pursuit  of  an 
actual  and  practical  purpose,  which  injures  other  arts,  is  the 
strength  of  this  ;  it  is  its  very  principle ;  and  every  art,  like 
every  institution,  is  corrupted  by  separating  it  from  its 
principle.  The  orator  who  supremely  seeks  to  please,  will 
not  please ;  even  as  virtue  w^hich  proposes  happiness  as  its 
end,  does  not  find  happiness.  Without  insisting  too  much, 
as  I  have  reason  not  to  do,  on  this  consideration,  I  affirm  that 
the  desire  of  speaking  well,  the  literary  point  of  view,  just 
in  proportion  as  it  has  ascendency  over  a  minister,  degrades 
his  ministry.  I  affirm  that  the  preacher  is  not,  in  the  highest 
view,  a  man  of  literature.  I  affirm  that  there  is  a  seductive 
intoxication  in  the  use  of  speech,  which  should  be  feared.  I 
affirm  that  we  should  fear  being  insensibly  carried  away  from 
action  into  the  imitation  of  action,  from  reality  into  poetry. 
This  deviation  is  but  too  easy ;  such  is  the  mysterious  con- 
junction between  moral  beauty  and  literary  beauty.     Paul 


350  OF  ELOCUTION  IN  GENERAL. 

has  said,  "  If  I  seek  to  please  men,  I  shall  not  be  the  servant 
of  Christ."  (Galatians,  i.  10.)  We  will  say,  "  If  I  seek  to 
please  myself."  To  avoid  this  evil,  a  sure  way  is  to  hold  art 
in  contempt ;  but  God  has  not  made  our  way  so  eas}^  Je- 
sus Christ  says,  "  I  pray  not  that  thou  should'st  take  them 
out  of  the  world,  (withdraw  them  from  the  conditions  of 
human  life,)  but  keep  them  from  the  evil."  (John,  xvii.  15.) 
It  is  between  the  idolatry  of  art  and  the  contempt  of  art, 
that  God  has  required  us  to  walk. 

Neither  an  anathema  on  art,  nor  art  for  art's  sake,  but  art 
for  God's  sake,  is  what  we  insist  upon.  It  results,  as  it  seems 
to  us,  from  what  we  have  said,  that  good  style  is  necessary, 
and  that  good  style  does  not  come  of  itself  If  it  is  not 
necessary,  no  more  is  the  rest  ;  if  it  comes  of  itself  the  rest 
will  also  come  of  itself,  and  we  shall  have  signed  at  once  the 
condemnation  of  art  altogether.  For  style  is  not  added  to 
all  the  rest,  style  is  an  integrant  part  of  art  ;  it  is  not  its 
supplement  but  its  complement.  The  limit  which  some 
would  trace  between  invention  and  disposition,  on  one  hand, 
and  elocution  on  the  other,  is  purely  arbitrary.  As  there 
are  invention  and  disposition  in  style,  so  there  is  style  al- 
ready in  these  first  two  parts.  There  is  continuity,  there  is 
identity  here,  and  the  circumstance,  very  remarkable  unques- 
tionably, that  there  are  persons  who  know  how  to  invent  and 
to  arrange,  who  do  not  know  how  to  write,  is  not  inconsist- 
ent with  what  we  have  just  said.  Though  a  road  becomes 
narrower  in  its  asscent,  and  though  curtain  travellers  pause 
at  this  stage  in  it,  panting  and  discouraged,  it  is  still  the  same 
road.  If  the  route  henceforth  becomes  more  difficult  for 
some  than  for  others,  it  by  no  means  follows  from  this  that 
it  is  permitted  to  them  to  pause,  since  the  object,  the  prize 
of  the  course,  is  only  at  the  end  of  the  road,  at  the  extremity 
of  the  race. 

Some  persons  suppose  there  is  an  artifice  in  the  application 


/ 


OF  ELOCUTION  IN   GENEKAL.  851 

which  is  given  to  elocution.  There  is  as  much,  we  may  say,  in 
the  first  two  operations  of  all  eloquence,  all  art.  We  must 
not  confound  artifice  and  art.  What  characterizes  artifice  is  the 
pursuit  of  an  evil  end,  or  the  use  of  evil  means,  or  both.  Art 
is  only  the  knowledge  and  use  of  means  indicated  by  nature 
and  experience,  in  order  to  attain  a  certain  end.  You  do  not 
deny  that  the  end  is  good.  It  is  even  the  only  end,  which  is 
absolutely  good ;  there  is  little  probability  that  a  good  end 
will  suggest  bad  means ;  if  you  should  try  such  means,  your 
end  would  array  itself  against  your  means.  But  in  what  do 
the  means  we  propose  consist  1  We  pretend  not  to  add  to 
the  truth,  or  to  lead  to  the  truth  through  falsehood,  or  to 
disturb  the  imagination  in  order  to  enlighten  the  conscience. 
No,  we  only  would  render  to  the  truth  that  which  belongs  to  it. 
Do  we  pretend  to  do  violence  to  human  liberty  1  No  ;  for 
not  to  speak  of  our  end,  which  is  precisely  to  set  souls  at 
liberty,  our  means  are  conformed  to  our  end,  since  we  would 
only  produce  a  more  immediate  contact  between  the  truth 
and  the  soulT)f  oar  hearers.  Tliere  is  then  no  artifice.  Does 
art  oppose  itself,  then,  as  contrary  no  longer  to  Christian 
rectitude,  but  to  nature  1  We  have  elsewhere  examined  the 
supposed  conflict  between  art  and  nature,*  so  like  to  that 
which  has  been  imagined  between  nature  and  civilization, 
which  is  also  an  art  and  the  first  of  arts ;  we  have  maintained 
that  art  is  natural,  that  art  is  still  nature,  that  the  oak  with 
an  hundred  boughs,  is  not  less  natural  than  the  acorn.  There 
is  scarcely  opposition  here  except  between  good  and  bad  na- 
ture. If  there  are  persons  to  whom  it  is  natural  not  to  care  for 
their  style,  there  are  others  who  find  it  very  natural  to  care 
for  theirs.  I  know  not  by  what  right  the  first  may  impose 
their  deformity  upon  those  who  have  the  instinct  of  the  beau- 
tiful and  the  sentiment  of  art.  They  themselves  may,  if  they 
wish,  find  from  experience,  that  art  may  become  a  second 
*  See  the  Introditction. 


352  ELOCUTION  IN  GENERAL. 

nature.  Is  it  maintained  that  it  is  more  natural  to  write 
badly  than  to  write  well,  since  to  write  well  requires  more 
labor  1  But  is  not  labor  the  universal  law "?  Does  it  not  add 
itself  to  all  our  gifts  ?  Does  the  most  gratuitous  and  the 
largest  gift  of  all,  exclude  labor  ?  *  Eden,  in  all  its  beauty, 
was  given  to  be  cultivated.  And  finally  negligence,  is  this  fliir 
nature  ?  You  do  not  accuse  yourself  of  cunning  and  artifice. 
May  we  not  with  better  reason  accuse  you  of  indolence '? 

You  appeal  to  facts,  and  say  that  style  has  made  dupes ! 
Logic  has  done  the  same.  Will  you  also  proscribe  logic  ? 
Because  error  is  armed,  would  you  have  truth  disarmed  1 
And  does  not  the  same  weapon  from  being  criminal  become 
virtuous,  in  passing  from  hand  to  hand  1  This  weapon  is  only 
returned  to  the  one  who  has  a  right  to  carry  it.  Say  not  that 
in  a  well-written  discourse,  truth  is  clothed  with  the  armor 
of  falsehood  ;  it  is  falsehood  which  has  stolen  that  of  truth. 
It  has  it  only  in  appearance ;  this  armor  does  not  fit  it.  On  the 
contrary,  we  feel  that  when  truth  clothes  itself  in  the  form  of 
the  beautiful,  it  only  enters  mto  possession  of  its  rights. 

We  have  already  answered  those  to  which  the  labor  of 
style  seems  unworthy  of  a  manly  and  serious  mind.  Of 
what  labor  do  they  mean  to  speak  ?  If  the  eloquence  of 
style  consists  in  speaking  appropriately,  apte  dicer e^\  why 
should  this  style,  necessarily  manly  and  serious,  be  unworthy 
of  the  application  of  a  manly  and  serious  mind  ?  What 
have  we  proposed  except  a  labor  of  thought  ?  "  When  I 
see,"  says  Montaigne,  "  these  noble  specimens  of  speaking,  I 
do  not  say  they  are  well  written,  I  say  they  are  well  thought." 
Style,  like  all  the  rest,  comes  from  within,  but  it  does  not 
come  by  itself  It  is  a  labor  of  the  mind  and  of  the  soul  which 
is  only  to  be  carried  to  its  term. 

*  "  Work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling.''^  (Philip- 
pians,  ii.  \'l.) 

f  CiCEEO. 


ELOCUTION   IK   GENEKAL.  353 

Pascal  has  been  cited,  who  has  said  :  "  True  eloquence  is 
the  contempt  of  eloquence."*  Yes,  of  false,  of  artificial, 
factitious  eloquence,  of  that  frivolous  eloquence  which  is  the 
study  and  delight  of  frivolous  men ;  of  artifice  when  candor 
would  have  sufficed ;  of  conventional  rules  to  which  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  recur  when  nature  fails.  This  pretended  eloquence 
is  truly  wanting  as  to  seriousness ;  but  closely  regarded,  it 
wants  art  also ;  it  is  in  the  other,  it  is  in  serious  eloquence 
that  art,  genuine  art,  triumphs. 

But  it  will  perhaps  be  said,  since  to  write  well  is  to  think 
well,  elocution,  excepting  that  which  is  arbitrary,  and  is  ad- 
dressed only  to  the  ear,  does  not  constitute  a  particular  art, 
and  is  not  the  object  of  a  special  study.  Admitting  this  to 
be  so,  the  importance  of  style  is  not  denied,  and  we  only  ask 
that  this  importance  be  recognized.  If  a  man  is  able  to  write 
well  without  the  necessity  of  a  labor  ad  hoc^  of  a  new  study, 
he  need  not  fear  being  questioned  as  to  the  way  in  which  he 
has  made  the  attainment ;  it  is  the  end,  not  the  means,  to 
which  importance  is  attached,  and  no  one  thinks  of  recom- 
mending the  labor  for  its  own  sake.  If  you  attain,  by  a 
single  impulse,  the  end  we  propose,  the  better  for  you,  and 
we  have  nothing  to  object.  We  are  well  persuaded  that 
things  do  end  thus,  and  that  there  are  writers  to  whom  it  is 
as  difficult  to  write  badly,  as  it  is  hard  to  others  to  write 
well.  But  if  it  were  important  to  discuss  the  question,  and 
we  had  not  already  replied  to  it,  we  would  say  that  the  expe- 
rience of  all  times,  and  the  testimony  of  all  teachers,  present 
to  us  as  inseparable,  these  two  propositions :  1.  That  we 
must  not  flatter  ourselves  that  we  shall  have  a  good  style, 
without  an  interesting  fund  of  ideas.  2.  That  even  with  an 
interesting  and  substantial  supply  of  ideas,  we  must  not  flat- 
ter ourselves  that  style  will  come  of  itself.  D'Alembert  sep- 
arates these :  "  Eloquence,"  he  says,  "  properly  consists  only 
•j-  Pascal,  Pensees,  partie  i.,  art.  x,  §  xxxiv. 


354  ELOCUTION   IN   GENERAL. 

in  vivid  and  rapid  traits,  its  effect  is  lively  emotion,  and  all 
emotion  is  enfeebled  by  being  prolonged.  Eloquence,  then, 
in  a  discourse  of  any  length,  can  reign  only  at  intervals ;  the 
lightning  darts  and  the  cloud  closes.  ^  But  though  shades  are 
necessary  in  a  picture,  they  should  not  be  too  deep  ;  the  hear- 
er doubtless  must  have  places  of  repose ;  in  these  places,  the 
hearer  should  take  breath,  not  sleep,  and  he  should  be  kept 
in  this  tranquil  and  agreeable  state  by  the  quiet  charms  of 
elocution.  Thus,  (what  is  no  less  true  than  apparently  para- 
doxical,) the  rules  of  elocution,  properly  speaking,  have  place 
and  are  truly  necessary  only  in  the  passages  which  are  not 
properly  eloquent,  which  the  orator  composes  when  he  is  cool, 
and  in  which  nature  has  need  of  art.  A  man  of  genius  should 
fear  falling  into  a  loose,  low,  grovelling  style,  only  when  he  is 
not  sustained  by  his  subject ;  then  it  is  that  elocution  should 
have  his  attention.  At  other  times,  his  elocution  will  be  as  it 
should  be,  without  his  thinking  of  it.  The  ancients,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  were  apprized  of  this  rule,  and  hence  in  their  works 
on  oratory,  they  have  treated  principally  of  elocution."* 

In  all  this  there  is  a  delicate  mixture  of  error  with  truth. 
Eloquence  does  not  consist  only  "  in  vivid  and  rapid  traits ;" 
it  has  these  traits,  but  eloquence  pervades  the  whole,  and 
continuity  is  one  of  its  elements,  one  of  its  conditions. 
Elocution  is  truly  something  special,  as  the  author  thinks, 
but  it  is  not  detached  from  eloquence.  The  following  pas- 
sage from  Cicero,  appears  to  me  to  present  the  true  principles 
of  the  subject  before  us :  "  As  every  speech  is  made  up  of 
things  and  words,  words  can  have  no  place  if  you  take  away 
things,  nor  can  things  be  explained  without  the  help  of 
words.  We  are  assailed  by  contrary  opinions,  not  only 
from  the  vulgar,  but  even  from  the  smatterers  in  learuiug, 
who  find  it  easier  to  handle  those  points,  after  they  are  torn, 

*  D'Alembert,  Melanges,  tome  ii.,  p.  329,  Reflexions  sur  l' Elocution 
Oratorie. 


ELOCUTION  IN   GENEKAL.  855 

and  as  it  were  separated  from  one  another,  which  they  are 
unable  to  comprehend  in  a  general  view,  and  who  sever 
words  from  sentiments,  which  is,  as  it  were,  separating  the 
body  from  the  soul,  and  producing  immediate  death.  I  will 
intimate,  in  a  few  words,  that  the  ornaments  of  expression 
can  no  more  be  attamed  without  inventing  and  arranging 
sentiments,  than  a  sentiment  can  be  intelligible  without  the 
lustre  of  expression."* 

It  is  said,  that  in  the  work  of  style  we  must  use  imagina- 
tion, and  that  imagination  is  a  deceiver.  But,  in  the  first 
place,  is  everything  in  the  labor  of  style,  an  affair  of  the  im- 
agmation  1  In  the  next  place,  is  the  imagination  itself  only  a 
fabricator  of  error  ?  The  imagination,  essentially,  is  the  fac- 
ulty not  of  believing  in  what  has  no  existence,  but  of  repre- 
senting to  oneself  that  which  one  does  not  see,  not  of  imagin- 
ing what  is  not^  but  of  imagi7iing.\  Whither  will  you  go  to 
escape  from  it  ?  Not  even  to  science,  not  even  to  faith.  The 
most  austere  are  susceptible  of  it.  See  only  the  refiections  on 
eloquence^  by  the  celebrated  Doctor  Arnauld.  Imagination 
may  henceforth  say  with  Boileau : 

Arnauld,  le  grand  Arnauld,  fit  mon  apologie.J 

Respectable  men  are  cited,  who  in  writing  and  speaking  on 
these  subjects,  have  disdained  the  study  of  their  style.  The 
apostles,  including  Saint  Paul  himself,  are  among  this  number. 
I  begin  by  declaring  that  I  am  not  scandalized  by  defects 

*  Cicero,  Be  Oratore,  lib,  iii.,  cap.  v.  and  vi.  [Trans. :  London, 
1808.] 

f  "  Non  de  s'imaginer,  mais  d'imaginer."  Fr.  Perhaps  the  former 
word  might  be  rendered  by  fancying. 

:j:  Boileau,  Epitre  x. : 

"  Arnauld,  the  great  Arnauld,  has  made  my  apology." 

See  on  the  attention  to  be  given  to  Elocution,  saint  Augustine,  Chris- 
tian Doctrine,  lib.  iv. ;  andRoLUN,  Traite  des  Etudes,  livre  v.,  chap,  ii,, 
art.  i.,  on  the  fault  of  neglecting  too  much  the  ornaments  of  discourse. 


856  ELOCUTION  EST  GENEEAL. 

which  may  be  shown  me  in  the  style  of  Saint  Paul.  He 
may  have  defects,  and  not  be  less  St.  Paul.  You,  in  fact,  do 
not  wish  to  write  in  every  respect  like  him.  Why  not  allow 
yourself  in  his  digressions?  If  attention  to  expression  is 
blamable,  attention  to  arrangement  may  well  be  also.  Saint 
Paul  had  a  spiritual  power  which  might  put  him  above  the 
rules  of  art ;  have  this  as  he  had,  and  we  allow  you  in  those 
digressions  and  that  obscurity  which  Saint  Augustine  has  re- 
marked, and  which  he  counsels  us  to  avoid,  as  being  refer- 
able to  some  secret  design  of  God.  But,  after  all,  write  as 
St.  Paul  does ;  we  ask  nothing  more,  provided  you  write  alto- 
gether as  he  does.  Saint  Paul  has  style.  I  know  not  how 
he  acquired  it ;  but  have  it  equally  ;  here  is  the  whole  ques- 
tion. If  you  can  have  it  without  labor,  we  ask  nothing 
better.  We  are  not  hindered  by  St.  Paul's  irregularities 
from  seeing  the  writer  in  him.  There  is  no  form  of  style 
which  may  be  pronounced  absolutely  good  or  absolutely  bad, 
independently  of  the  particular  circumstances  or  character 
of  the  writer;  and  if  St.  Paul  was  an  ordinary  writer,  an 
artist,  we  might  be  reminded  by  his  irregularities  of  these 
verses  of  Despreaux : 

Quelquesfois  dans  sa  course  un  esprit  vigourenx, 
Trop  resserre  par  I'art  sort  des  regies  prescrites, 
Et  de  Tart  meme  apprend  a  fz-anchir  leurs  limites.* 

"  Men  may  convert,  edify,  console  others,  without  aid 
from  style."  Do  it  then  ;  do  without  style  what  we  would 
have  you  do  with  the  aid  of  style ;  we  shall  speak  no  more 
to  you  concerning  style.  Men  also  have  converted  others 
without  the  word.  Do  that,  and  we  shall  hold  you  quit  of  the 
word      But,  as  a  general  truth,  men  are  converted  and  edi- 

*  BoiLEAU,  11  Art  Poetiqtie,  chant  iv. 

"A  powerful  mind,  in  its  course,  sometimes, 
Confined  too  much  by  art,  set-rules  forsakes, 
And  learns  from  art  itself  to  pass  their  bounds." — ^Tr. 


ELOCUTION  IN  GENERAL.  857 

fied  by  the  word,  and  style  is  nothing  else  but  the  word  ren- 
dering more  or  less  justly  the  thought  or  inward  life  of  the 
speaker.  He  acts  through  the  word  only  as  the  word  ex- 
presses truly  all  his  thought ;  in  this  sense,  there  is  neither 
paradox  nor  levity  in  saying  that  men  are  converted  by  means 
of  style.  The  truth  is  so  powerful,  and,  in  some  cases,  the 
hearer  is  so  well  disposed,  that  all  speaking,  all  style  is  good. 
Say,  then,  that  you  have  succeeded  in  spite  of  the  imperfec- 
tions of  language,  but  go  no  farther.  If  you  imagine  that 
this  success  authorizes  you  to  speak  without  application  and 
without  rule,  why  not  also  say  that  it  is  the  means  of  speak- 
ing better  1  And  you  will  come  to  this.  It  is  the  doctrine 
of  quietism  applied  to  the  use  of  speech.  You  will  be  the 
mystics  of  eloquence. — Moreover,  we  have  not  forgotten,  in 
speaking  of  style,  that  every  one  has  his  vocation  and  style. 
If  you  have  the  overwhelming  vehemence  of  a  Whitefield,  of 
a  street  preacher,  go  into  the  streets,  and  speak  there  what 
language  you  will ;  you  will  have  the  style  suited  to  your 
position  and  your  purpose ;  nothing  more  will  be  required  of 
you,  but  this  is  required,  it  still  is  style.  If,  with  the  mis- 
sionary of  the  Romish  Church,  your  hands  have  been  burnt 
off  in  an  incipient  martyrdom,  stretch  forth  to  the  multitude 
your  mutilated  arms,  and  they  will  speak.  When  the  word 
itself  is  superfluous,  of  wha4}  importance  is  the  form  of  the 
word  1  But  if  the  word  is  used,  if  it  is  through  the  word  that 
we  act,  the  form  is  important.  The  form  and  the  substance 
are  inseparable,  and  in  truth  they  are  one. 

Nothing,  assuredly,  is  more  serious,  nothing  greater  than 
the  mission  of  Moses.  Nothing  is  more  eloquent  than  his 
life,  except  the  miracles  which  he  performed  by  his  voice. 
He  might,  it  would  seem,  have  been  exempted  from  speak- 
ing or  speaking  well.  Eloquence  is  considered  among  the 
Arabs  as  the  greatest  of  natural  gifts,  because  it  has  more 
influence  with  them  than  with  any  other  nation.     Moses  be- 


858  ELOCUTION  IN  GENERAL. 

ing  conscious  that  this  talent  did  not  belong  to  him,  could 
not  entrust  himself  to  his  mission ;  he  shrunk  from  it  no 
longer,  however,  as  soon  as  the  Lord  united  with  him  Aaron, 
his  brother,  saying :  "  Scio  quod  eloquens  si^."j- 

This  is  an  answer  to  those  who  say,  that  the  application 
given  to  style  is  appreciated  only  by  a  small  number.  I  pre- 
sume we  are  not  to  understand  by  this,  that  to  be  ap- 
preciated, admired,  may  be  the  end  and  the  recompense  of 
the  preacher ;  but  only  that  it  may  be  the  sign  and  proof 
that  his  true  purpose  has  been  reached.  Now  it  is  certain,  I 
admit,  that  a  good  style  is  justly  appreciated  only  by  a  small 
number,  but  if  no  one  has  remarked  that  your  style  is  good, 
does  it  follow  that  you  have  lost  your  labor  ?  If  a  good 
style  has  produced  its  effect,  it  is  of  small  importance  whether 
the  hearer  knows  distinctly  by  what  this  effect  has  been  pro- 
duced. An  assiduous  and  attentive  hearer,  after  awhile, 
will  make  proper  acknowledgment  of  certain  merits.  If  a 
christian  preacher  may  think  himself  called  to  form  the  taste 
of  the  public,  it  is  ours  certainly  to  form  the  taste  of  our  au- 
ditory. 

"  Still  the  form  may  withdraw  attention  from  the  sub- 
stance." It  is  too  true.  As  the  thinker,  when  the  time  for 
writing  has  come,  may  pause,  may  yield,  before  a  more  deli- 
cate, perhaps  more  complicated  labor,  and  leave  express- 
ion to  become  what  it  may,  another,  in  his  turn,  may  pre- 
fer attaching  himself  to  the  labor  of  style  by  its  most  ex- 
ternal parts,  by  those  which  have  the  least  connexion  with  the 
interior  of  the  subject  and  the  substance  of  things.  It  seems, 
in  truth,  that  if  you  form  a  just  idea  of  style,  the  form  can- 
not so  easily  divert  you  from  the  substance  ;  for  true  style 
comes  from  thought,  as  the  complexion  comes  from  the  blood, 
as  the  flower  springs  from  the  vigor  of  the  sap.     Style  is  not 

*  Leon  De  Labordk,  Commentaire  sur  I'Bxode,  etc.,  Paris,  1841,  in 
fol,  p.  14. 


ELOCUTION  IN  GENERAL.  359 

the  mask  but  the  physiognomy  of  thought.  Still  the  diffi- 
culty remains,  and  I  wish  neither  to  deny  nor  enfeeble  it  ;  I 
will  endeavor  to  avoid  doing  so.  I  say  more ;  I  know  of  but 
one  remedy  for  it,  the  spirit  of  mortification  and  the  spirit  of 
prayer.  For  to  say  :  Let  words  come  as  they  will ;  let  us  not 
use  all  our  advantages  ;  let  us  refuse  our  thought  its  form, 
that  is  to  say,  in  some  sort,  the  life  and  the  faculty  of  com- 
munication ;  this  is  what  we  should  not  do.  Eloquence  is  a 
whole,  a  unit,  which  we  cannot  divide.  We  have  not  im- 
posed on  it  any  form,  we  have  not  recommended  any  style 
in  particular,  we  have  only  required  that  the  word  of  the 
sacred  orator  should  render  his  life  and  his  thought  as  per- 
fectly as  possible.  This  thought  he  owes,  in  its  fulness,  to  his 
hearers  ;  he  ought  to  convey  it  to  them,  with  all  its  elements, 
all  its  characteristics  ;  now,  if  he  cannot  do  this  without  a  par- 
ticular application,  without  a  labor  ad  hoc^  this  labor,  this  ap- 
plication, is  matter  of  obligation  like  all  the  rest.* 

*  We  think  we  ought  to  reproduce  the  more  extended  develop- 
ments which  M.  Vinet  gave  to  his  thought  in  a  former  digest  of 
this  part  of  his  course  : 

"  The  labor  of  style  thus  conceived,  that  is  to  say,  as  little  subor- 
dinated to  things  as  possible,  and  even  subjecting  these  to  itself, 
making  thought  its  instrument,  instead  of  its  being  the  instrument 
of  thought,  may  certainly  be  a  snare,  and  form  may  withdraw  at- 
tention from  the  substance.  Such  is  it  in  the  case  of  the  man  with 
whom  writing  is  the  first  thing,  to  whom  principles,  ideas,  facts,  are 
of  little  value  in  themselves,  and  are  only  the  substratum,  and,  so  to 
speak;  the  gangue  of  style.  His  business  is  to  make  the  most  vulgar 
articles  valuable  by  the  chasing,  and,  in  fact,  he  is  to  the  true  writer 
what  the  chaser  is  to  the  sculptor.  The  agreeableness  of  his  style 
consists  in  ideas,  like  the  excellence  of  the  most  solid  style,  for  with 
these  he  cannot  dispense,  but  it  is  in  ideas  of  tinsel,  ideas  with- 
out roots  and  without  power,  or  if  some  thought  is  mixed  with 
it,  it  is  external  to  the  subject,  sustaining  nothing,  and  unsustained. 
One  can  scarcely  say  that  the  form  has  withdrawn  attention  from 
the  substance,  of  which,  to  say  the  truth,  this  man  has  scarcely 


860  ELOCUTION  IN  GENEEAL. 

A  man  of  letters,  to  whom,  when  he  was  sick,  a  priest 
endeavored  to  represent  the  joys  of  paradise,  interrupted 
him  by  saying,  "  Speak  no  more  of  them,  my  father,  your  bad 
style  disgusts  me  with  them."  This  profane  pleasantry  is  in- 
tellectual epicurism  to  the  last  degree.  But,  frankly,  we  have 
no  right  to  speak  of  divine  things  in  a  bad  style.  In  vain 
will  it  be  said,  that  the  things  should  speak  ;  for  what  is  a 
bad  style,  but  something  which  hinders  them  from  speaking, 

dreamed.  We  must  not  indeed  distinguisli  here  between  writers,  we 
must  distinguish  between  subjects.  The  subjects  here  are  such  that 
the  form  is  every  thing,  the  form  is  the  thought,  itself,  the  form  is  the 
whole  work.  I  refer  to  those  common  thoughts,  those  common 
places,  (using  the  phrase  in  the  best  sense,)  in  which  everything 
being  given  once  for  all,  nothing  remains  but  to  express  well,  and  in 
which  one  author  can  differ  from  another  only  in  expression.  Now, 
as  BufFon  says,  the  art  of  saying  little  things  may  become  more 
difficiilt  than  the  art  of  saying  great  things.  In  every  case,  the 
form  does  not  take  attention  from  the  substance,  because  all  is  form. 

I  do  not  mean  to  deny  that,  apart  from  these  subjects,  form  may 
draw  attention  from  substance,  though  to  the  great  damage,  when  it 
does,  of  form  itself;  for,  in  great  subjects,  the  style,  that  is  to  say 
the  truth  and  character  of  the  expression,  can  come  only  from  great 
thoughts.  Thus  then,  in  these  subjects,  the  labor  of  style  may  "in- 
deed be  a  separate  labor,  a  thing  sui  generis;  so  that  we  may  have 
thoughts  without  style,  substance  without  form,  but  we  cannot  have 
form  without  substance.  If  the  labor  of  style  does  not  proceed  from 
within,  if  it  is  not  intimately  united  to  the  labor  of  the  thinker,  and 
the  internal  activity  of  the  man,  if  it  is  applied  from  without,  if  it 
does  not  spring  like  the  flower,  from  the  force  of  the  sap,  it  is  neither 
a  true  style  nor  a  style  true,  for  style  is  not  the  mask,  it  is  the 
physiognomy  of  thought. 

If  then  we  say  that  the  form  will  draw  us  from  the  substance,  it  is 
not  of  true  form,  it  is  not  of  true  style  that  we  speak,  since  it  is  con- 
substantial  with  thought.  We  must  charge  the  fault  not  to  the  form 
but  to  the  man ;  he  has  not  thought  of  the  true  form  of  the  object, 
because  he  has  not  thought  of  the  object.  But  if  we  are  pre-occu- 
pied  with  the  true  form,  we  are  not  withdrawn  from  the  substance 


ELOCUTION   IN   GENERAL.  361 

an  infidel  style,  a  style  which  is  not  true  (and  in  this  respect 
it  may  be  at  the  same  time  elegant  and  bad)  ;  what,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  a  good  style,  but  a  style  which  is  true  in  every 
respect  ?  For  it  is  with  the  truth  that  it  has  to  do,  and  we  do 
not  give  as  a  motto  to  eloquence,  these  well-known  verses  : 

Les  sues  reparateurs  dont  la  coupe  est  remplie, 
A  I'eufant  qui  se  ineurt  sont  en  vain  presentes, 

of  things  ;  for  it  is  in  view  of  the  substance  that  we  seek  a  form  and 
the  form  returns  into  the  substance. 

This  is  all  I  have  to  say  to  the  preacher,  on  whom  I  must  ac- 
knowledge, the  external  labor  of  style,  the  attraction  of  fine  words, 
the  pomp,  the  harmony,  the  decorum  of  language,  may  exert  their 
seductive  influence,  as  well  as  on  another ;  and  in  proportion  to  his 
j^outh,  especially  if  he  be  a  man  of  taste,  he  will  scarcely  be  able  to 
resist  it,  and  to  recognize  a  style  in  the  naked  simplicity  of  a  De- 
mosthenes and  a  Pascal.  He  will  long  perhaps  be  under  the  charm  of 
words  and  images,  and  in  works  of  art,  will  take  show  for  beauty. 
It  is  important  that  without  repressing  too  much  a  fine  and  tasteful 
imagination,  he  should  study  eloquence  in  the  models  which  I  have 
named ;  not  that  theirs  is  the  only  manner  of  being  eloquent  and 
true,  (that  of  Bossuet  is  not  less  so,  since  he  faithfully  renders  the  in- 
ternal life  and  character  of  his  thoughts;)  but  because  in  this  school 
he  is  less  exposed  to  mistakes,  because  in  this  simplicity  we  rather 
recognize  what  it  is  that  forms  the  essence  of  a  good  style,  and  that 
liberty  is  no  longer  dangerous  after  continuing  for  a  season  so  severe 
a  discipline. 

"When  one  says  to  you,  that  form  withdraws  us  from  the  substance, 
reply,  that  you  must,  after  all,  seek  the  form  of  your  thought ;  but 
seek  this  form  in  the  thought  itself ;  and  condemn  yourself  before- 
hand, yourself  alone  and  not  art,  if  you  have  sacrificed  substance  to 
a  form,  which,  from  that  very  circumstance,  was  not  its  own;  for 
a  thought  cannot  perish  in  an  expression  which  is  conformed  and 
adequate  to  it. 

All  this  discussion  is  founded  on  a  misunderstanding ;  it  would  not 
have  had  place  if  it  had  been  agreed  beforehand  that  the  essential 
merit  of  style  and  the  foundation  of  its  beauty,  is  in  being  true ; 
true  relatively  to  the  subject,  true  relatively  to  the  writer. — [Edi- 

TOES.J 

16 


862  ELOCUTION   IN   GENEKAL. 

Mais  que  d'lin  peu  de  miel  les  bords  soient  humeetes 
L'enfant  saissit  la  coupe,  et,  trompe  boit  la  vie.* 

We  would  neither  deceive  nor  seduce ;  falsehood  and  error 
often  kill,  but  never  give  life. 

Finally,  it  is  said  :  How  much  time  does  this  labor  of  style 
take  away  from  us  1  We  should  satisfy  ourselves  that  this 
time  is  lost — that  what  we  obtain  is  not  worth  the  sacrifice 
we  make  for  it,  and  that  we  gain  as  much  m  respect  to  the 
final  purpose  of  discourse  by  writing  rapidly  and  indiflerent- 
ly,  as  by  writing  slowly  and  well.  Moreover,  I  am  not  sure 
that  we  save  much  time  by  neglectmg  style.  I  think  we 
learn  from  this  exercise,  both  to  write  rapidly  and  to  write 
well ;  and  that  in  this  matter,  as  in  many  otiiers,  in  order  to 
gain  time,  we  must  know  how  to  lose  it ;  for  good  style  be- 
comes an  instinct,  and  in  the  end  is  as  a  flowing  fountain. 
But  I  hasten  to  take  the  objection  in  its  full  force. 

"  Time  presses,"  it  is  said ;  "  each  instant  which  escapes 
from  us,  becomes  our  accuser ;  preaching  should  be  abun- 
dant, and  preachers  be  multiplied ;  discourses,  were  it  possi- 
ble, should  follow  each  other  without  an  interval,  and  each 
discourse  declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God." 

Should  preaching,  then,  be  but  a  cry  of  alarm  ?  Why,  if 
it  should  be,  has  religion  been  presented  to  us  in  so  long  a 
series  of  facts,  so  long  a  chain  of  deductions,  so  vast  a  sys- 
tem of  ideas  ?  It  is  thus  presented  according  to  the  will  of 
God,  and  it  probably  does  not  belong  to  us  to  wish  it  were 
otherwise ;  and  in  view  of  his  patience,  it  ill  becomes  us  to  be 
impatient.  Whether  preaching  be  for  appeal,  as  it  is  said, 
or  for  confirmation^  it  is  something  besides  a  cry  ;  it  is  a  word, 

*  Tasso,  Jerusalem  delivered,  chant  i. 

"  In  vain  the  dying  child  is  urged  to  take 
The  cup  with  juice  invigorating  filled. 
But  let  the  edge  with  honey  be  but  touched, 
The  child  deceived,  receives  the  cup  and  lives."— Tr. 


ELOCUTION  IN  GENERAL. 


an  instruction,  a  discourse.  Some  are  gently  called,  and 
others  gently  confirmed  ;  perturbation  has  its  value,  and  may 
have  its  hour ;  but  taking  the  work  as  a  whole,  we  may  say, 
in  every  sense,  "  The  fruit  of  righteousness  is  sown  in  peace." 
(James,  iii.  18.)  And  we  should  not  fear  to  apply  to  pastors 
what  has  been  said  to  poets  : 

Travaillez  a  loisir,  quelque  ordre  qui  vous  presse. 

Putting  each  instant  to  profit,  and  working  in  haste,  are 
two  very  different  things ;  the  second  is  not  implied  in  the 
first,  and  it  is  precisely  that  we  may  do  nothing  in  haste,  that 
we  should  be  avaricious  of  time. 

Situations,  certainly,  are  not  always  the  same ;  there  are 
missionaries  as  well  as  pastors,  and  pastors,  in  our  day,  are 
half  missionaries.  Would  we  make  the  pastor  do  less  in  or- 
der to  his  doing  better  1  God  forbid  !  But,  if  when  he  had 
leisure  for  it,  he  had  studied  art,  had  practised  it,  he  would 
speak  well  naturally ;  he  would  not  be  long  in  seeking  the 
best  terms,  the  best  forms  of  expression ;  they  would  come 
to  him  of  themselves.  He  would  slowly  have  acquired  the 
secret  of  meditating  quickly,  he  would,  by  labor,  have  ren- 
dered himself  able  to  find  with  ease,  just  and  new  plans, 
happy  combinations,  interesting  points  of  view.  It  may  be 
thought,  from  its  naturalness,  that  he  owes  everything  to 
talent,  to  emotion  ;  he  himself  may  think  so  ;  but  if  he  care- 
fully examines  his  consciousness,  he  will  soon  understand  the 
matter,  and  will  be  surprised  to  discover  that  he  never  defers 
so  much  to  art  as  at  the  moment  when  he  thinks  he  is  obey- 
ing instinct.     Art,  with  him,  has  in  fact  become  instinct. 

For  what,  moreover,  do  we  contend  1  What  1  For  a  cer- 
tain measure  of  perfection.  Who  may  determine  it  ?  We 
have  maintained  but  one  thing,  that  each  one  should  do  as 
well  as  he  can.  We  have  not  so  much  required  the  practice 
of  art  as  esteem  for  it  and  the  acknowledgment  of  its  rights. 


864  ELOCUTION  IN  GENEEAL. 

In  gaining  this  we  think  we  gain  everything.  It  is  a  prin. 
ciple  on  which  we  are  insisting;  and  circumstances  being 
parallel,  difficulties  equal,  there  will  be  an  entire  difference 
in  practice  between  him  who  confesses  the  principle  and  him 
who  denies  it.  It  is  impossible  to  acknowledge  art  and 
wholly  to  neglect  it ;  for  it  is  always  possible  to  practice  it 
in  some  measure.  An  artist  is  always  an  artist.  Always, 
as  far  as  he  can,  he  meets  the  exigencies  of  art ;  and  when  he 
wants  leisure  for  preparation,  he  improvises  his  preparation, 
so  to  speak,  and  meditates  in  execution.  There  have  been, 
we  doubt  not,  true  artists  among  popular  orators  and  street 
preachers,  and  their  theory,  the  secret  of  which  they  would 
confide  to  us  if  they  themselves  had  possession  of  it,  is  a 
wise  theory. 

Must  we  repeat  again,  that  we  regard  art  as  a  means 
and  not  as  an  end,  and  that  it  is  only  the  result  we  are  in  quest 
of?  Produce  us,  without  preparation,  without  meditation, 
by  the  mere  powers  of  instinct,  a  logical,  connected,  solid  dis- 
course, pure  as  to  language,  natural  as  to  expression,  and 
happy  to  find  that  you  have  arrived  at  the  end  of  your 
journey,  we  will  make  no  inquiry  as  to  the  way  in  which 
you  have  come.  What  does  it  concern  us  ?  Moreover,  to 
tell  the  truth,  we  know  it.  Say  what  you  will,  you  are  an 
artist,  and  your  instinct  is  not  a  blind  one.  But  as  to  those, 
and  their  number  is  very  great,  who  write  negligently  and 
badly,  nothing  forbids  us  from  saying  to  them,  that  they 
write  badly  because  they  write  negligently,  and  that  in  order 
to  write  better,  they  must  have  either  more  of  instinct 
(which  they  cannot  give  themselves)  or  more  of  art,  (which 
they  may  acquire.)  As  there  are  so  many  ministers  to  whom 
one  cannot  listen,  as  slovenly  discourses  are  so  frequent  in 
the  pulpit,  as  the  feeblest  lawyers  can  hardly  descend  to  the 
level  of  the  feeblest  preachers,  we  conclude  that  art,  yet 
more  necessary  in  the  pulpit  than  at  the  bar,  is  disowned  by 


ELOCUTION  IN  GENEEAL.  865 

idleness  or  repelled  by  prejudice.  The  opposite  doctrine 
would  certainly  elevate  the  level  of  ecclesiastical  eloquence. 
Let  the  younger  among  the  more  ardent  make  trial  of  it ; 
they  will  not  be  long  in  disabusing  themselves  of  the  idea 
that  art  is  something  essentially  voluminous,  which  demands 
for  its  display,  a  great  space ;  that  is  to  say,  much  time ; 
they  will  soon  understand,  and  afterwards  know  by  expe- 
rience that  much  art  may  be  contained  within  an  hour ;  inten- 
sity of  labor  is  as  available  as  length.  When  this  discovery 
has  been  made,  there  is  already  much  advancement.  What 
in  many  minds  has  disparaged  art,  is  not  art  in  itself,  nor 
even  its  abuse,  but  much  rather  its  absence. 

A  discourse  of  which  the  progress  is  measured,  the  plan 
rigidly  symmetrical,  the  style  pompous  or  brilliant,  the  sen- 
tences always  rounded  and  sonorous,  distresses  or  wearies  us 
by  its  cold  elegance.  We  condemn  strongly  a  kind  of  writing 
so  false.  We  even  venture  to  blame,  in  works  much  more 
simple  and  grave,  a  certain  stiffness  of  form  and  a  certain 
starchness  of  language,  the  last  and  too  persistent  vestiges  of 
an  epoch  in  which  eloquence  was  a  pageant.  We  would 
banish  if  we  could,  the  rhetoric  of  rhetoricians  to  make  place 
for  that  of  the  philosophers.  We  insist  on  the  rights  of  in- 
dividuality, which  is  to  art,  what  liberty  is  to  law.  But  we 
do  not  arraign,  we  do  not  banish  art,  which  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  whims  which  offend  us.  Art  is  necessary,  art  is 
immortal  p  the  reformations  we  recommend  depend  upon  it, 
and  will  be  its  work  ;  and  when  we  shall  have  accomplished 
them  we  may  say  with  equal  justice,  with  equal  truth.  Na- 
ture at  last  has  regained  its  prerogatives;  art  at  last  has 
triumphed.  Art  in  fact  consists  essentially  in  following  and 
perhaps  in  retrieving  nature.  There  is  only  one  real  opposi- 
tion ;  it  is  not  an  opposition  between  nature  and  art,  but  be- 
tween false  art  and  true.  If  we  adbere  to  this  formula  it  is 
because  this  formula  is  a  principle. 


366  FUNDAMENTAL  QUALITIES   OF   STYLE. 

Let  us  be  understood.  We  only  require  for  the  pulpit, 
the  style  of  thought,  but  this  we  do  require.  We  require  it 
for  the  village  as  well  as  the  city  pulpit.  A  popular  style  is 
not  a  degree  but  a  kind  of  style.  No  more  do  we  maintain 
that  preachers,  as  a  whole,  should  surpass  in  this  respect  writ- 
ers as  a  whole ;  but  that  a  bad  style,  a  trivial,  dull,  loose, 
dragging  style,  does  not  seem  to  be  an  appendage  of  the 
pulpit;  that  there  is  no  exception  to  be  made  here  as  to 
good  language ;  that  the  preacher,  called  as  he  is  to  reason  and 
to  speak  is  not  to  be  a  worse  reasoner  or  speaker  than  any 
other  writer  or  orator. 

It  would  be  strange  and  unfortunate  if,  at  an  epoch  in 
which  every  one  is  more  exacting  or  more  severe,  the  pulpit 
should  be  more  indulgent  to  itself  than  at  an  epoch  in  which 
less  was  required.*  It  would,  in  truth,  be  an  odd  way  of 
showing,  that  weak  things  confound  the  mighty ;  this  means, 
in  our  opinion,  is  not  to  be  relied  upon. 


CHAPTER  11. 

FUNDAMENTAL   QUALITIES   OF   STYLE. 

We  are  to  consider  the  different  conditions  of  elocution  in 
sacred  discourse.  Now,  of  these  there  is  not  one  that  is 
peculiar  to  sacred  discourse.  And  if  we  must  restrict  our- 
selves to  what  is  peculiar  to  it,  we  should  have  to  be  content 
with  the  few  loose  notes  which,  in  a  treatise  on  oratorical 
elocution  according  to  the  general  principles  of  rhetoric, 
might  be  throv/n  at  the  bottom  of  the  page,  assuming  at  the 

*  There  are  not  more,  perhaps  there  are  fewer  men  of  genius  than 
formerly;  but  good  speaking  has  become  common,  and  many  more 
[)ersons  are  capable  of  judging. 


FUNDAMENTAL   QUALITIES   OF   STYLE.  867 

same  time,  that  our  hearers  are  already  acquainted  with 
rhetoric  in  its  general  principles  or  without  application  to  a 
particular  kind  of  eloquence.  But  it  would  neither  be  possi- 
ble nor  useful  to  proceed  in  this  manner.  We  shall,  there- 
fore, with  special  regard  in  each  instance  to  the  eloquence 
of  the  pulpit,  pass  in  re\-iew  the  principal  points  of  a  treatise 
on  oratorical  elocution,  or  indeed  of  elocution  in  general. 

We  are  then  to  give  an  enumeration  of  the  different  quali- 
ties of  style,  as  if  we  were  treating  generally  of  the  art  of 
writing,  but  still  with  a  special  reference  in  everything  to 
the  object  of  sacred  discourse.  We  begin  with  qualities 
which  are  indispensable  to  style  in  every  kind  and  instance 
of  writing,  and  without  which,  or  at  least  some  measure  of 
which,  style  is  decidedly  bad. 

Those  essential  qualities  which  make  a  writer  irreproach- 
able, as  obedience  to  the  laws  makes  an  honest,  though  not  a 
virtuous  man,  are  the  following  :  perspicuity^  purity^  correct- 
ness, propriety,  precision,  order,  naturalness,  suitableness. 

After  qualities  comes  virtues,  or  style,  properly  so  called, 
which  is  the  character  impressed  on  language  by  the  subject, 
or  by  the  individuality  of  the  writer ;  after  truth,  beauty,  as 
far,  at  least,  as  these  two  things  may  be  separated,  the 
beautiful  being  "  the  splendor  of  the  true." 

D'Alembert  distinguishes  between  diction  and  style  :  "  Elo- 
cution," he  says,  "has  two  parts,  which  it  is  necessary  to  dis- 
tinguish although  they  are  often*  confounded ;  diction  and 
style  ;  diction,  properly,  has  respect  only  to  the  grammatical 
qualities  of  discourse,  correctness  and  perspicuity  ;  style,  on 
the  contrary,  includes  qualities  of  elocution,  which  are  more 
particular,  more  difficult  and  more  rare,  and  which  mark  the 
genius  or  the  talent  of  him  who  writes  or  speaks ;  such  as 
propriety  of  terms,  nobleness,  harmony,  facility." 

We  would  for  ourselves  remark,  that  some  of  the  quali- 
ties of  style  which  we  are  now  to  consider,  are   not  pur^y 


868  PERSPICUITY. 

negative,  that  is  to  say,  do  not  consist  in  the  absence  of  faults ; 
propriety,  precision,  even  perspicuity,  may  become  virtues  of 
style,  when  carried  to  a  certain  point. 

§  1.  Perspicuity. 

If  we  consider  the  first  or  proximate  end  of  discourse,  we 
cannot,  I  think,  hesitate  to  give  the  first  place  to  perspicuity. 
Nobis  prima  sit  virtus  perspicuitas,  says  Quintilian.* 

The  importance  of  perspicuity  ought  not  to  be  questioned ; 
still  there  is  a  predilection  for  obscurity.  Man  rejoices  in 
perspicuity,  but  yet  he  is  imposed  on  by  obscurity.  As  that 
which  is  profound  is  sometimes  obscure,  he  mistakes  obscurity 
for  depth.  We  do  not  maintain  that  perspicuity  answers 
every  purpose.  In  some  subjects  we  distrust  it.  "  In  elo- 
quence, perspicuity  is  often  of  itself  a  great  force,  a  great 
means  of  persuasion  ;  may  we  not  add  it  is  also  a  snare  ?  It 
is  not  always  decisive  as  to  justness  of  reasoning  ;  especially 
is  it  not,  as  to  justness  of  views  ;  it  may,  as  may  also  ele- 
gance, accompany  and  recommend  error.  We  may  doubt- 
less be  at  the  same  time  superficial  and  obscure  ;  but  some 
who  may  be  clear  if  they  are  content  to  be  superficial,  would, 
by  a  loftier  aspiration,  be  lost  and  left  in  the  clouds.  We 
must  always  distrust  obscurity  ;  but  we  must  not  yield  to 
perspicuity  an  absolute  confidence.  Self-love  and  indolence 
conspire  to  prejudice  us  in  favor  of  what  is  clear ;  but  in  or- 
der to  judge  of  an  author,  it  is  not  enough  that  from  his  own 
point  of  view,  we  can  easily  comprehend  him  ;  we  must  first 
of  all  examine  his  point  of  view  itself  On  the  top  of  a  hill 
the  horizon  appears  distinct  to  us  because  it  is  limited  ;  on 
the  top  of  a  mountain  we  take  in  a  horizon  which,  as  to  its 
limits,  may  be  obscure,  but  then  it  is  immense. "f     We  freely 

*  Quintilian,  lib.  viii.,  cap.  ii.  "Let  us  regard  perspicuity  as  the 
first  excellence." 

\  Chrcstomathie  fraut^aise,  tome  iii.,  p.  20*7,  troisicme  edition.    Re- 


PEKSPICUITY.  869 

say  with  La  Bruyere  :  "  We  do  not  write  merely  to  be 
understood ;  but  in  writing  we  must  at  least  be  interesting  as 
well  as  intelligible.  It  is  abusing  purity  and  perspicuity  in 
discourse  to  employ  them  upon  arid,  unprolific  topics,  which 
have  no  poignancy,  no  utility,  no  novelty.  Of  what  advan-  ' 
tage  is  it  to  readers  that  they  understand  easily  and  without 
effort,  things  which  are  frivolous  and  puerile,  perhaps  in- 
sipid and  vulgar  ;  and  that  they  are  less  uncertain  as  to  an 
author's  thought  than  tired  of  his  work."*  This,  I  think,  is 
readily  enough  conceded  ;  but  after  all,  obscurity  is  not  a 
good,  but  an  evil.  Everywhere  is  it  an  evil,  where  there  is  a 
necessity  for  perspicuity.  We  speak  in  order  to  be  under-  ' 
stood,  and  if  we  do  not  wish  or  expect  to  be  understood,  it 
were  well^o  be  silent.  It  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  say 
that  which  cannot  be  said  clearly.  It  is  true  that  everything 
is  not  naturally  clear,  in  matters  upon  which  we  may 
profitably  discourse  to  men,  but  then  we  must  either  over- 
come the  obscurity  or  confess  that  it  is  invincible,  and  show 
clearly  the  obscurity  of  the  subject. 

Let  us  endeavor,  ourselves,  to  be  perspicuous  on  this  point, 
and  to  have  it  well  understood,  that  it  is  perspicuity  of  style, 
and  not  perspicuity  of  subjects,  to  which  we  have  reference. 
It  would  be  unjust  to  charge  an  author  with  obscurity,  who 
is  obscure  to  us  only  because  the  subject  he  treats  is  above 
the  reach  of  our  minds.  He  may  have  erred  in  bringing 
such  a  subject  before  such  an  auditory,  and  in  this  matter 
shown  want  of  judgment ;  but  his  discourse  may  be  very 
perspicuous. 

Perspicuity  is  to  be  determined  by  its  result,  facility  of 
being  well  understood.  A  man  who  has  not  understood  you, 
may  have  no  right  to  say  to  you  :  "  You  have  not  been  clear." 

marks  of  M.  Vinet  occasioned  by  tliediscourse  of  Barnave,  sur  Vexer- 
cise  du  droit  de  la  paix  et  de  la  guerre. 

*La  Beuyere,  Les  Caracteres,  chap,  ler,  Des  ouvrages  deV esprit. 
16* 


370  PERSPICUITY. 

You  ought  to  be  perspicuous,  in  exact  proportion,  first  to  the 
perspicuity  of  your  subject,  then  to  the  understanding  of  the 
hearer,  and  finally  to  the  attention  he  gives  you. 

On  subjects  as  to  which  our  design  is  not  only  to  instruct 
but  to  persuade  and  determine  the  will,  we  have  no  power  if 
we  are  not  perspicuous  ;  we  are  powerful  sometimes  merely 
by  being  perspicuous.  There  hence  results  a  particular  ne- 
cessity for  perspicuity  in  the  pulpit ;  but  this  necessity  re- 
sults also  from  the  nature  of  public  discourse,  and  from  the 
character  of  the  auditories  to  which  preaching  is  addressed. 
The  labor  of  understanding  what  is  spoken  prevents  the  soul 
from  yielding  itself  to  its  power.  The  precept  of  Quintilian 
may  here  be  applied  :  Oratio  debet  negligenter  quoque  audi- 
entibus  esse  aperta/^ 

It  may  be  added,  that,  in  this  respect,  the  French  mind  is 
exacting.  The  French  language,  it  would  seem,  is  emi- 
nently perspicuous  from  the  influence  of  causes  which  might 
be  thought  to  make  it  obscure.  Other  languages,  in  which 
the  meaning  is  always  made  obvious  by  turns  of  expression, 
are  negligent  in  respect  to  perspicuity.  In  the  French  lan- 
guage, which  does  not  offer  this  facility,  the  difliculty  is  avoid- 
ed in  a  different  manner.  There  is  a  demand  for  perspicuity 
in  French  auditories,  which  is  perhaps  peculiar  to  themselves. 
The  preacher  should  satisfy  this  demand.  The  mere  possi- 
bility that  a  phrase  may  have  ^two  meanings,  may  suffice  to 
divert  and  alienate  the  attention  of  some  hearers.  He  must 
accommodate  himself  to  this  peculiarity,  so  much  the  more 
since  it  has  saved  the  language  which  has  escaped  only  by  an 
exigence  which  could  not  bear  the  obscurity  from  which,  with 
so   much  difficulty,  it   has  emerged. 

But  perspicuity  should  not  be  carried  so  far  as  to  render 
discourse  hisipid.    Time  has  enfeebled  the  notion  of  the  word 

*  Quintilian,  lib.  viii.,  cap.  ii.  "  An  orator  should  be  clear  and  in- 
telligible even  to  hearers  who  give  imperfect  attention." 


PEESPICUITY.  871 

perspicuity  as  well  as  that  of  many  others.  It  formerly  sig- 
nified effulgence,  brightness,  and  Racine,  in  his  day,  might 
speak  of  Jerusalem  as  "  brilliant  with  perspicuity."  Giving 
perspicuity  its  full  force,  it  will  not  be  merely  negative,  it 
will  be  brilliant.  Explaining  everythmg,  filling'  out  every 
detail,  satiating  the  mind  with  evidence,  is  failing  of  the  end 
by  getting  beyond  it.  Style  produces  its  effects  not  only  by 
what  it  says  and  shows,  but  by  what  it  does  not  say ;  perspi- 
cuity does  not  exclude  reticence  ellipsis,  half-lights  which  are 
truly  occasions  of  activity  to  the  mind.  When  the  hearer 
is  able  to  work  his  own  way,  he  does  not  wish  to  be  carried. 
The  orator  should  doubtless  offer  aid  to  indolent  hearers,  but 
not  so  far,  assuredly,  as  to  impair  the  sprightliness  of  active 
minds.  He  must  leave  neither  too  much  nor  too  little  to  be 
supi^lied  by  his  hearers. 

There  are  very  many  beauties  in  style  which,  in  truth,  are 
improprieties  of  language,  exaggeration,  obscurities  of  dic- 
tion. There  are  rhetorical  figures  which  are  nothing  else. 
In  hyperbole,  something  is  given  to  the  hearer  to  retrench  ; 
in  litotes,  something  to  be  added ;  in  irony,  the  true  to  be 
put  parallel  to  the  false,  etc.  But  all  this  does  not  trench 
upon  the  rule  which  we  have  given. — Let  us  now  inquire  for 
the  means  of  perspicuity  of  style.  They  are  of  two  kinds. 
Some  apart  from  the  labor  of  elocution  or  preliminary  to  it ; 
others  which  have  their  application  in  this  labor  itself  We 
first  note  those  of  the  former  kind. 

1.  Sincerity.  We  do  not  say  truth,  because  truth  is  some- 
times less  perspicuous  than  error,*  and  we  are  speaking  only 
of  subjects  which  are  perspicuous  in  themselves.  There  may 
hence  be  an  advantage  to  the  defender  of  error  ;  but  in  error 

*  "  Certain  errors  have  the  appearance  of  perspicuity,"  says  Ber- 
nardin  de  Saint  Pierre,  when  speaking  of  Condillae.  Eclecticism 
also  has  this  aj^pearanee,  and  it  is  by  a  great  appearance  of  perspi- 
cuity that  certain  erroneous  systems,  certain  heresies,  have  succeeded. 


872  PEESPICUITY. 

as  well  as  in  truth,  sincerity  is  a  means  of  perspicuity.  The 
position  of  him  who  defends  truth  without  being  convinced  of 
it,  is  worse  on  this  account,  than  the  position  of  one  who  defends 
error,  believing  it  to  be  truth.  The  latter  perhaps  cuts  the 
knot  which  he  thinks  to  untie ;  but  his  position  is  true ;  he  is 
in  a  state  of  liberty  and  of  ease ;  he  is  not  troubled  to  adjust 
his  thought  and  the  truth  to  each  other,  to  insert  a  crooked 
blade  into  a  straight  scabbard.  •  He,  on  the  contrary,  whose 
thought  is  out  of  harmony  with  itself,  undertaking  to  recon- 
cile two  adversaries  that  never  can  be  in  agreement,  error 
which  he  defends  and  truth  which  he  cannot  avoid  recogniz- 
ing, is  to  be  pitied  both  in  defending  the  one  and  in  recog- 
nizing the  other.  Obliged  to  be  partially  true,  in  his  use  of 
language,  he  experiences  perpetual  embarrassment,  which  he 
endeavors  to  disguise  by  the  elaboration  of  words,  by  indus- 
trious dexterity  in  giving  turns  to  expression,  by  stealthy 
subtility  in  connecting  things  together.  In  all  this  there  is 
nothing  favorable  to  perspicuity  which  has  its  life  in  freedom, 
in  decision,  and  in  unity.  Now,  a  discourse  can  no  more  be 
eloquent  with  obscurity  than  a  figure  be  striking  in  the  dark. 
A  sophist  may  be  eloquent,  but  only  when  he  is  sincere. 

2.  Distinct  conception  of  ideas,  or  understanding  ourselves 
well.     Boileau  has  said : 

Selon  que  notre  idee  est  plus  ou  moins  obscure,* 
L'expression  la  suit  ou  moins  nette,  ou  plus  pure, 
Ce  que  Ton  coni,oit  bien  s'enonce  claireraent, 
Et  les  mots  pour  le  dire  arrivent  aisement.f 

Tlie  last  two  lines  are  true  only  with  restriction.      Words 

*  He  does  not  say,  Accordingly  as  our  idea  is  more  or  less  true, — 
but  more  or  less  obscure. 

f  Boileau,  L^ Art  Poetiquc,  chant i.  "As  our  idea  is  more  or  less 
obscure,  the  expression  which  follows  it  is  less  distinct  or  more  pure. 
What  one  conceives  well  he  announces  clearly,  and  words  for  ex- 
pressing it  come  readily." 


PEESPICUITY.  373 

do  not  always  occur  readily  to  him  who  has  clear  conceptions. 
It  may  indeed  be  sometimes  said  that  one  conceives  clearly 
only  when  he  has  found  words.  For  we  think  in  words,  and 
speech  evidently  is  the  analysis  of  thought.  But  still  it  is 
not  less  true,  that  we  may  not  flatter  ourselves  that  we  make 
that  clear  to  others  which  is  not  so  to  ourselves.  Perhaps 
our  thought  is  obscure  to  us  because  we  have  not  yet  found 
its  expression ;  perhaps  we  have  not  found  this  expression, 
because  our  thought  is  obscure  to  us;  it  matters  not; 
we  must  not  pretend  to  give  what  we  have  not.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  by  any  means  whatever,  with  words  or  with- 
out them,  we  have  succeeded  in  taking  account  of  the  ob- 
ject of  our  thought,  if  our  thought,  like  a  logical  mechan- 
ism, plays  without  effort  and  without  embarrassment,  and 
if  there  is  no  interruption  of  continuity  between  the  parts 
of  our  thought,  we  have  at  least  a  very  great  chance  of 
being  understood,  and  if  this  be  not  an  infallible  means  of 
perspicuity,  it  is  an  indispensable  condition  of  it. 

3.  Care  to  put  ourself  in  the  hearer's  place.  Without 
this  care,  we  may  be  obscure.  Signs  which  may  serve  as  an 
adequate  expression,  and  recognition  of  our  thought  to  our- 
selves, may  not  always  suffice  to  express  it  to  others.  We 
know  what  we  would  say,  they  do  not.  We  may,  then,  in 
speaking  only  to  ourselves,  be  indulged  in  what  cannot  be  al- 
lowed to  us  in  speaking  to  others.  Let  us  remember  how  often 
a  reader  detects  an  equivocal  expression  in  an  author,  who,  af- 
ter reading  it  himself  the  tenth  time,  did  not  discover  it. 

"  We  will  venture  to  apply  to  human  speech  in  general, 
and  to  style  in  writing,  what  a  sacred  author  has  said  of  pro- 
phecy :  '  Nothing  should  be  of  private  interpretation,'  (2 
Peter,  i.  20,)  that  is  to  say,  thought  should  be  clothed  in  a 
form  at  the  same  time  individual  and  general,  which,  in  order 
to  be  understood  and  accepted,  does  not  assume  entire  con- 
formity of  the  reader's  mind  to  that  of  the  writer.     It  may 


874  PEESPICUITY. 

be  that  our  expression  is  subjectively  true ;  that  it  conveys, 
vrith  perfect  fidelity,  the  aspect  in  which  the  object  presented 
itself  to  us,  and  the  impression  we  received  from  it ;  we  may 
fall  in  with  some  one  who  finds  in  our  manner  of  conceiving 
of  the  idea,  an  anticipation  of  the  difficulty  which  it  has  oc- 
casioned in  his  own  mind ;  we  may  perchance  have  spoken 
admirably  for  this  mind  congenial  in  this  respect  with  our 
own ;  but  we  may  have  spoken  well  only  for  this  mind,  or 
at  least  for  some  few  others  besides ;  we  have  thought  too 
solitarily ;  we  have  thought,  or  rather  felt,  instead  of  speak- 
ing, if  it  be  true  that  in  speaking  we  seek  the  mind  of  others 
on  ground  which  is  familiar  to  them ;  their  adhesion,  their 
lively  assent,  their  rapid  association  with  us,  all,  things  which 
are  necessary  to  meet  one  of  the  first  instincts  of  eloquence, 
have  been  too  little  felt  to  be  necessary  on  our  part,  and  it 
is  to  be  feared  that  their  understandings  will  not  come  to 
seek  us  in  this  proud  solitude,  in  which,  far  from  them,  we 
have  secluded  ourselves.  A  book  is  not  a  monologue.  It  is 
a  very  long  aside^  which  lasts  through  a  volume.  We  must 
write  in  the  view  and  presence  of  others ;  in  a  manner,  bor- 
row of  the  reader  the  discourse  we  would  hold  with  him ; 
listen  to  him  as  much  as  speak  to  him  ;  make  each  of  our 
sentences  an  answer  to  his  silent  questions ;  permit  him  to 
suggest  to  us  our  own  words.  Still  these  words  must  be  our 
own.  And  that  they  may  be  affecting  to  the  reader,  they 
must  strike  him  as  foreign,  while  suitable  to  him  as  his  om^i. 
It  is  this  happy  combination  which  has  always  made  skilful 
writers,  true  orators,  and  in  proportion  as  one  or  the  other 
of  these  two  elements  has  been  wanting,  whether  the  first  or 
the  second  is  of  no  importance,  eloquence  has  been  defc^ctive ; 
for  eloquence  is  maintained  at  once  by  individuality  and  by 
sympathy ;  to  live  much  in  yourself,  to  live  much  in  others, 
this  is  the  two-fold  requisite  to  powerful  spealiing. 

The  majority  of  writers  ought  to  be  re-translated ;  few  of 


PERSPICUITY.  375 

them  are  translated  when  born — that  is  to  say,  clothed  with  a 
form  suitable  for  communication.  What  one  writes  at  first, 
for  his  own  sake,  should  be  written  a  second  time  for  the 
sake  of  others."* 

Pascal,  on  re-perusing  his  thoughts,  would  not  perhaps  have 
understood  them  all,  and  might  have  hesitated  between  one 
sense  and  another.  If  Rousseau,  who  had  so  much  difficulty 
in  finding  words,  could  write  his  Emile  nine  times,  in  pursuit 
of  different  ones,  we  may  well  write  our  sermons  at  least 
twice. 

La  Bruyere  has  said :  "In  order  to  write  clearly,  every 
writer  should  put  himself  in  the  place  of  his  readers ;  should 
examine  his  own  work  as  something  which  is  new  to  him, 
which  he  reads  for  the  first  time,  in  which  he  has  no  peculiar 
interest ;  and  which  the  author  has  submitted  to  his  criticism  ; 
and  should  expect  to  be  understood  not  because  he  under- 
stands himself,  but  because  he  is  in  truth  intelligible."f 
We  should  even  do  this,  if  we  wrote  for  ourselves.  "  We 
do  well  to  give  account  of  our  thought  to  others  in  order  to 
give  account  of  it  to  ourselves.  We  are  not  sure  of  under- 
standing ourselves  perfectly,  unless  we  have  done  what  we 
can  to  be  intelligible  apart  from  ourselves.  Our  thought  in- 
deed is  ours  only  when  we  have  communicated  it  and  have 
gained  it  acceptance.  Till  we  have  done  this,  we  are  in  much 
danger  of  resting  in  vagueness,  and  in  being  almost  correct. 
It  is  useful  to  have  to  do  with  those  who  are  not  content  with 
this,  and  in  this  class  let  us  be  sure  that  the  public  is  to  be 
reckoned."! 

We  must  know  our  hearers  in  order  to  put  ourselves  in 

*  M.  ViNET  here  cites  himself.  See  Le  Semeur,  tome  vii.,  (annee, 
1838,)  pp.  307,  309. 

\  La  BRUYERic,  Les  Garacteres,  chap,  i.,  Des  ouvrages  de  V esprit. 

\  M.  Vinet  here  cites  himself.  See  Le  Semcur,  tome  vii.,  (annee, 
1838,)  p.  309. 


876  PERSPICUITY. 

their  place  ;  after  sermon,  let  us  inquire  if  we  have  been  un- 
derstood, and  in  what  manner. 

To  these  general  means  of  obtaining  perspicuity,  we  sub- 
join particular  ones. 

1.  We  must  avoid  expressions  too  little  known  or  too 
abstract.  Style  on  account  of  these  will  not  be  absolutely 
less  perspicuous,  but  we  speak  of  a  perspicuity  relative  to 
the  ordinary  auditory  of  the  preacher.  The  pulpit  should 
give  great  attention  to  this.  We  ought  in  speaking  to  an 
auditory,  on  matters  of  the  highest  concern  to  them,  to  be 
intelligible  to  them.  It  is  a  singular  thing  that  sacrifices 
made  for  the  sake  of  perspicuity  sometimes  interfere  with 
precision  ;  but  perspicuity  is  before  everything. 

2.  We  must  avoid  too  much  ellipsis. 

3.  We  must  exclude  ambiguity,  even  though  it  may  not 
lead  to  error.  It  is  always  disagreeable,  and  divides  atten- 
tion. 

4.  We  must  shun  labored  and  embarrassed  turns  of  ex- 
pression. An  unpractised  mind  will  find  much  trouble  in 
discriminating  the  principal  point  in  a  phrase  but  a  little 
overloaded.  This,  however,  does  not  exclude  the  periodic  style. 

5c  We  must  allow  no  want  of  unity  of  phrase.  We  can- 
not determine  anything  as  to  the  length  of  a  period,  but  it 
must  be  as  to  thought,  grammar,  the  ear,  a  unit.  Unity  of 
thought  exists  when  all  the  ideas  are  integrant  parts  of  the 
principal  idea.  The  period  should  have  the  effect  of  con- 
centric circles  drawn  around  the  same  centre. 

6.  We  must  not  admit  into  the  same  sentence  too  many 
accessory  or  too  many  subtile  ideas. 

7.  We  must  have  no  want  of  order  in  our  plans,  narra- 
tions, etc.,  by  which  the  parts  would  be  hindered  from  throw- 
mg  suitable  light  on  one  another. 


PURITY.  377 

§  2.  Purity,  correctness,  propriety,  precision. 

These  different  qualities,  and  the  latter  two  more  evidently 
than  the  former,  are  aids  to  perspicuity.  Purity  and  correctness 
are  important  chiefly  from  their  relation  to  perspicuity  of  style. 

Correctness  is  but  a  branch  of  purity.  They  both  have 
strict  regard  to  the  conventionalities  of  language,  one  in  re- 
spect of  words,  the  other  of  construction.  "  Language  is  a 
conventionality,  which,  like  that  of  society,  of  which  it  is  the 
instrument  and  the  basis,  binds  at  once  every  person,  willing 
or  unwilling.  Language  is  as  sacred  as  society.  It  is  not, 
it  cannot  be  immutable,  but  it  suffers  no  arbitrary  or  capri- 
cious change,  no  gratuitous  violence,  no  purely  individual 
modification."  *  It  is  a  conventionality  .not  less  regarded 
than  it  would  be  if  the  law  had  said,  "  such  a  word  shall 
signify  such  a  thing,  or  such  a  thing  shall  be  designated  by 
such  a  word."  Indeed,  the  acts  of  the  tribunals  themselves 
are  based  on  this  convention,  which  is  nowhere  written. 
Words  are  the  representative  signs  of  ihtellectual  values. 
Writers,  without  purity  or  correctness,  are  as  false  coiners 
who  introduce  disturbances  in  intellectual  transactions,  and 
diminish  the  credit  of  speech.  Respect  for  language  is 
almost  a  matter  of  morality.  It  would  doubtless  be  extrava- 
gant and  unjust  to  charge  a  man  with  immorality  for  speak- 
ing badly ;  but  we  may  say,  at  least,  that  the  general  cor- 
ruption of  language  is  a  mark  of  the  declension  of  morals. 
We  add,  that  with  those  who  are  capable  of  judging,  a  preach- 
er is  discredited  by  bad  language. 

Some  of  the  defects  how  referred  to,  those  especially 
which  indicate  affectation  or  too  much  intercourse  with  the 
world  of  fashion,  are  contrary  to  the  gravity  of  the  pulpit. f 

*  Lb  Semeur.     M.  Vinet  here  cites  himself. 

f  In  certain  countries,  in  certain  times,  language  has  to  be  reduced 
to  the  level  of  the  multitude,  and  to  be  corrupted,  in  order  to  be  in- 
telligible.    This  is  not  the  case  with  us.     We  have  nothing  between 


378  PKOPEIETY. 

Propriety  or  justness  consists  in  using  terms  which  suit  ex- 
clusively each  of  the  ideas  we  would  express. 

Perfect  synonyms  we  cannot  have,  for  every  language, 
when  compared  with  the  ideas  to  be  expressed,  is  poor.  Two 
forms  cannot  be  applied  to  the  same  idea;  they  would  give 
us  two  ideas.  For  each  idea  there  can  be  but  one  word ; 
any  other  would  not  express  the  same  idea.  When  language  is 
'enriched,  it  gains  nothing  superfluous  ;  expression,  taken  in 
a  superfluous  sense,  is  improper.  No  language  in  the  world 
can  contain  any  superfluity.  A  word  to  be  found  with  diffi- 
culty goes  to  fill  an  empty  nitch,  and  to  name  a  solitary  idea 
which  has  been  waiting  for  a  visible  existence,  or  which 
could  have  such  an  existence  only  by  means  of  circumlocu- 
tion. Not  but  that  we  may,  in  certain  cases,  substitute  one 
word  for  another,  especially  when  we  have  in  view  a  general 
idea.  For  example,  though  in  defining  indigence  (the  want 
of  what  is  necessary)  and  poverty,  (the  want  of  everything 
superfluous,)  we  must  mark  well  the  difference,  yet  if  we 
should  speak  in  a  sermon  of  the  general  idea  of  well-doing, 
it  would  be  indifferent  whether  we  urged  the  giving  of  aid  to 
indigence  or  the  giving  of  it  to  poverty. 

La  Bruyere  says  on  this  subject :  "  Among  all  the  different 
expressions  v/hich  may  render  one  and  the  same  thought, 
only  one  is  good ;  we  do  not  always  fall  in  with  it  in  speak- 
ing or  in  writing.     It   nevertheless  exists,  and  every  other 

French  and  patois,  we  have  indeed  patois  no  longer.  For  example, 
we  are  not  obliged  to  say  vite  for  tot ;  se  rajypeler  de  quelque  chose,  for  se 
rappeler  quelque  chose  ;  nous  avons  convemi,  for  fiou.i  sommcs  convc-, 
nus  ;  aimer  lire,  for  aimer  a  lire  ;  distraisent,  for  distraient ;  observer  d, 
for  faire  observer  a  ;  il  craignait  que  je  ne  Veus  perdu,  ses  alentours, 
for  ses  entours;  la  maison  quefai  faite  batir,  un  mesentendu,  for  un  ma- 
lentendu,  je  me  suis  en  alle,  Vendroit  ou  la  foret  est  la  plus  epaisse ;  re- 
couvert,  for  recouvre  ;  empecher  a  mahjre.  que,  etc. 

It  is  from  us  that  the  majority  of  the  public  learn  French.  We 
are  at  once  the  guardians  of  good  manners  and  good  language. 


PROPEIETY.  879 

except  that  is  feeble,  and  a  man  of  mind  who  wishes  to  be 
understood,  can  be  satisfied  only  with  that."  * 

La  Bruyere  here  indicates  two  disadvantages  of  impro- 
priety, obscurity  and  weakness ;  and  two  advantages  of  pro 
priety,  perspicuity  and  force. 

Improper  expressions  render  the  style  not  wholly  obscure, 
but  confused,  of  diminished  perspicuity.  The  style  may,  how- 
ever, become  decidedly  obscure,  through  impropriety.  As  to 
force,  it  is  always  proportional  to  perspicuity  ;  we  may  add 
force  to  perspicuity  ;  but  never,  without  perspicuity,  can  we  be 
strong ;  force  is  only  a  higher  degree  of  truth. 

The  law  of  propriety  condenses,  not  only  expressions 
which  are  not  just,  (the  first  degree  of  impropriety,)  but  ex- 
pressions which  are  not  applied  closely  enough  to  the  idea, 
or  between  which  and  the  idea  an  interval  is  left.  There' is, 
accordingly,  an  impropriety  in  the  last  of  these  verses  of 
Boileau  on  Juvenal : 

Soit  que  sur  un  ecrit  arrive  de  Capree, 

n  brise  de  Sejan  la  statue  adoree 

Soit  qu'il  fasse  au  conseil,  courir  les  Senateurs, 

D'un  tyran  soupgonneux  pales  adulateurs, 

Ses  ecrits  plains  de  feu  partout  hrillent  aux  yeux.\ 

Propriety  may  be  extended  so  far  as  to  be  no  longer  purely 
negative,  but  positive,  striking ;  it  may  become  a  virtue  of 
style.;|;     D'Alembert  we  know  has  said  :  "  Among  ordinary 

*  La  Bruyere,  Les  Caracteres,  chap,  i.,  Bes  ouvrages  de  V esprit. 
f  BoiLEATJ,  UArt  Poetique,  chant  ii. 

"  Whether  on  the  arrival  of  a  -writing  from  Caprea, 
He  breaks  in  pieces  the  image  of  Sejanus, 
Or  hurries  together  in  council,  the  Senators, 
Pale  flatterers  of  a  suspicious  tyrant, 

****** 
His  writings  full  of  fire,  sparkle  in  our  eyes.^^ 
X  BuFFON  here  is  specially  remarkable.     See  among  others  his  de- 
scription de  V Arabic. 


380  PEOPRIETY. 

authors  expression,  so  to  speak,  is  always  by  the  side  of  the 
idea .;  reading  them  gives  the  same  kind  of  pain  to  good 
minds  that  a  singer,  whose  voice  is  between  false  and  true, 
gives  to  delicate  ears.  Great  writers,  on  the  contrary,  are 
distinguished  by  propriety ;  their  style,  by  this  means,  is  al- 
ways on  a  level  with  their  subject ;  it  is  this  quality  which 
reveals  the  true  talent  for  writing,  as  distinguished  from  the 
futile  art  of  disguising  common  ideas  by  a  vain  coloring."* 

That  the  want  of  propriety  may  be  felt,  it  is  not  necessary 
that  you  should  be  overtaken  by  the  reader  in  a  flagrant  in- 
stance of  impropriety  ;  the  negative  effect  is  sufficient ;  that 
is  to  say,  it  suffices  that  the  exact  correspondence  of  the  term 
to  the  idea  is  not  felt.  And  how  is  this  felt  1  After  a  more 
or  less  frequent  use,  the  greater  part  of  the  readers  or  hear- 
ers have  received  a  just  sense  of  the  import  of  a  word ;  con- 
formably to  the  purpose  of  its  formation  it  must  have  been, 
used  in  its  true  sense  often  enough  to  make  a  just  impression 
of  itself,  even  on  the  minds  of  persons  who  cannot  define  it ; 
so  that  if  they  do  not  distinctly  notice  that  the  term  we  em- 
ploy is  improper,  they  at  least  do  not  receive  from  it  the  im- 
pression, the  stroke,  so  to  speak,  which  they  should  receive ; 
the  hammer  has  struck  by  the  side  of  the  nail  or  struck  the 
nail  on  the  side. 

There  may,  moreover,  be  an  affectation  of  propriety,  as 
there  is  an  affectation  of  purity.  The  painful  toil  of  distin- 
guishing and  analyzing,  is  not  necessary  to  it. 
^  Attention  given  to  propriety  of  expression,  may  contribute 
not  only  to  the  perspicuity  and  force  of  the  discourse,  but  to  the 
richness  and  beauty  of  the  language.  Whence  the  poverty  of 
our  vocabulary  1  Is  it  from  unacquaintance  with  our  tongue  ? 
No,  but  we  are  not  accustomed  to  distinguish  between  words 

*D'Alembeet,  Melanges,  tome  ii.,  p.  345.  Reflexions  sur  ^elocution 
oratoire. 


PKECISION.  881 

of  a  similar  signification,  that  is  to  say,  words  which  express 
the  same  general  idea  in  a  particular  shade  of  meaning. 
From  not  notmg  carefully  the  shades  of  meaning,  we  use  for 
each  of  them,  either  the  generic  term  which  eml^races  them 
all,  or  a  special  term  taken  at  hazard.  Tliis  word,  rather 
than  the  others,  almost  always  recurs,  the  others  remain  un- 
used ;  our  vocabulary  is  contracted,  our  language  is  poor. 
There  are  fortunate  minds,  favored  too  by  education,  to 
whom  language  yields  up  at  every  moment  all  its  affluence 
of  expression  and  form.  They  are,  it  is  said,  well  acquaint- 
ed with  it,  but  what  is  this  that  is  said '?  Are  others  to  whom 
none  of  the  terms  it  consists  of  are  strange  or  new,  less  ac- 
quainted with  it  ?  The  first  in  this  sense  know  it  better,  that 
having  received  from  each  of  the  words  a  more  distinct  and 
vivid  impression,  by  observing  better,  and  feeling  its  power 
more  perfectly,  and  being  in  more  intimate  relation  to  it, 
it  is  more  at  the  command  of  their  thought.  We  may,  to 
a  certain  extent,  appropriate  this  advantage  by  study,  the 
thoughtful  study,  I  mean,  of  good  authors ;  it  would  also 
be  a  useful  labor  to  inform  ourselves  in  a  case  of  uncertainty 
as  to  the  import  of  a  word,  or  the  choice  which  should 
be  made  between  two  words,  that  is  to  say,  to  recur  to  the 
most  valuable  works  on  synonyms.  We  may  also  recom- 
mend, in  this  connection,  the  exercise  of  translation. 

Propriety  in  the  expression  of  moral  ideas  is  difficult  and 
uncommon ;  yet  propriety  is  not  naturally  foreign  to  these 
ideas.  For,  although  there  is  scarcely  a  perfectly  simple 
moral  state  or  fact,  in  concreto^  we  have  succeeded  in  distin- 
guishing clearly  the  elements  which  are  combined  in  each 
state  or  fact  of  this  class,  of  which  I  desire  no  other  proof 
than  the  names  we  have  found  for  them. 

Precision. — These  two  qualities,  propriety  and  precision, 
are,  assuredly,  not  without  a  relation  to  each  other  ;  the  ne- 
cessity for  one  supposes  the  necessity  for  the  other,  and  we 


382  PRECISION. 

can  hardly  find  a  writer  who  has  cultivated  one  and  neglect- 
ed the  other.  Still,  they  are  distinct,  and  ought  to  be  studied 
separately. 

The  word' precision  appears  to  designate  a  language  which 
expresses  neither  more  nor  less  than  one  means  to  say,  and 
it  is  often  used  in  this  sense ;  but  the  Rhetoricians  and  the 
Academy  define  precision:  "Exactness  in  discourse,  by 
which  one  so  confines  himself  to  the  subject  of  which  he 
speaks,  that  he  says  nothing  superfluous."  The  Academy 
adds  :  "  by  which,  also,  he  expresses  himself  with  justness, 
regularity." 

We  will  say,  for  ourselves,  that  while  propriety  is  con- 
cerned with  the  justness  of  signs,  precision  has  respect  to 
their  number,  which  it  reduces  to  what  is  simply  necessary. 
But  if  it  is  opposed  to  saying  too  much,  it  is  not  content  with- 
out saying  everything.  "  Precision,"  says  M.  Lemontey, 
"  consists  in  banishing  from  discourse  everything  superfluous, 
and  omitting  nothing  which  is  necessary.  It  must  be  dis- 
tinguished from  one  of  its  branches  which  is  called  concise- 
ness, and  which  pertains  to  the  husbandry  of  words  and  to  the 
compactness  of  the  sentence,  rather  than  to  the  strict  adjust- 
ment of  the  expression  to  the  thought.  Conciseness  may  be 
applied  indiflTerently  to  falsehood  and  to  truth,  while  precis- 
ion cannot  be  conceived  of  apart  from  justness  and  perspi- 
cuity ;  conciseness,  also,  may  be  but  an  affectation  of  the 
mind,  while  precision  consists  especially  in  the  combined  vigor 
of  judgment  and  character.  In  man  it  is  the  attribute  of 
force  and  reason ;  in  social  order,  the  language  of  the  law 
which  prescribes,  and  of  the  authority  which  commands ;  in 
science,  the  end  and  perfection  of  method  and  nomencla- 
ture." 

Precision,  nevertheless,  tends  to  ex)nciseness,  since,  as  its 
name  indicates,  it  retrenches,  it  cuts  around.  Conciseness  is 
distinguished  by  an  economy  of  words  greater  than  the  ob- 


PKECISION.  383 

ject  of  precision  requires ;  for  precision  only  suppresses  what 
is  decidedly  superfluous,  and  would  spare  the  mind  a  fatigue, 
that  which  springs  from  the  necessity  which  an  author  puts 
upon  us,  of  condensing  the  thought,  or  reducing  it  to  a  few 
elements.  Conciseness,  stopping  somewhat  short  of  what  is 
necessary  to  complete  expression,  is  not  designed,  doubtless, 
to  fatigue  the  mind,  but  it  gives  it  labor,  and  thus  it  enters 
into  the  category  of  those  procedures  or  figures  of  which  we 
have  before  spoken.  It  is  an  ellipsis,  not  of  words  but  of 
thoughts.  Taking  it  as  figure,  or  at  least  as  a  particular  force 
of  style,  it  can  scarcely  constitute  the  form  of  an  entire  com- 
position, especially  that  of  the  sermon.  It  is  too  apt  to  pro- 
duce obscurity  ;*  it  approaches  to  affectation  and  the  epigram- 
matic style.  It  is  often  but  the  false  semblance  of  precision ; 
and  nothing  is  easier  than  to  have  at  the  same  time  much  con- 
ciseness and  very  little  precision.  For  it  is  possible  to  be  at 
the  same  time  parsimonious  and  prodigal,  and  with  all  this 
affectation  of  strictness,  to  leave  only  vague  ideas  in  the  mind 
of  the  reader. 

Precision  is  opposed  to  repetitions,  unmeaning  epithets, 
pleonasms,  expletives,  f  Proceeding  farther,  it  becomes  a  real 
virtue  of  style,  and  furnishes  us  with  the  most  apt  and  neat 
forms  of  expression,  and  urges  us  to  concentrate  many  words 
in  one,  which  one  word,  in  truth,  contains  the  substance  of 
many.  It  aims  to  spare  the  reader  the  pains  of  taking  the 
sum  of  the  ideas,  by  enabling  him  to  comprehend  them  at  a 
glance.  Still,  redundance  and  a  certain  accumulation  of  cir- 
cumstances and  of  words,  may  not  be  inappropriate.  J; 

*  See  RoLUN,  Traite  des  etudes,  lib.  v.,  ch.  ii.,  art.  1. 

f  See  BoiLEAu,  criticised  by  Condillac,  Art  d'ecrire,  p.  115,  edition 
de  Geneve,  1808,  and  P.  Corneille,  tome  i.,  pp.  129, 132,  edition  Didot> 
1800. 

X  See  Pelisson,  Discours  au  Roi,  pour  M.  Fouquet.  ( Ghrestomathu 
Frangaise,  tome  ii.,  254,  258,  troisi^me  edition.)  See,  also,  1  Comith 
ians,  XV.  63,  54.  ** 


884  PRECISION. 

Precision  is  not  equally  necessary  in  every  kind  of  com- 
position. Prolixity  is  always  repulsive ;  but  a  certain  abun- 
dance is  necessary,  when  instead  of  writing  we  have  to  speak, 
and  especially  to  speak  to  a  promiscuous  auditory  ;*  and  some 
diffuseness  is  suited  to  the  fulness  of  the  heart.  A  heart 
which  is  moved  wants  to  multiply  the  thought  which  agi- 
tates it,  and  to  express  it  at  large,  by  multiplying  words  and 
images.  It  is  difficult  to  move  others  by  very  condensed 
language,  unless  we  follow  and  enforce  it  by  thoughts  more 
fully  developed. 

In  the  same  discourse,  different  degrees  of  precision  may 
have  place.  But  we  seldom  advance  from  more  precision  to 
more  abundance.  The  wave  appears  to  compress  itself  in 
order  to  break  with  greater  force.  "  Oratory,"  says  Le- 
montey,  "  is  prodigal  of  rich  developments,  only  that  it  may 
conclude  its  harangues  with  more  cogent  recapitulations,  and 
finish  often  like  Demosthenes,  that  which  it  began  like  Iso- 
crates."f 

*  Precision,  which  is  a  stranger  to  the  protestations  of  love,  to  the 
confidential  expressions  of  friendship,  to  the  freedom  of  the  episto- 
lary style,  and  to  the  obscurities  of  diplomacy,  finds  its  own  obsta- 
cles in  eloquence,  in  poetry,  and  in  the  dramatic  art.  Whenever  we 
address  several  men  simultaneously,  we  must  adapt  ourselves  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  most  frivolous,  the  capacity  of  the  most  simple,  the 
indolence  of  the  most  sluggish.  Whenever  we  undei-take  to  convince 
varioiis  minds,  what  a  variety  of  tone  and  imagery,  what  repeated  at- 
tacks are  necessary  in  order  to  oppose  the  different  degrees  of  malevo- 
lence, and  prejudices  of  many  roots !  Thus  the  sacred  pulpit,  the 
political  tribune,  try  different  methods,  and  employ  alternately  ve- 
hemence, authority,  unction,  imagination,  and  argument. — Lemontet. 

f  Satius  est  aliquid  (oriatoni)  superesse  quam  deesse,  Quintilian, 
lib.  iv.,  cap.  ii.  "That  which  ordinarily  causes  obscurity  in  dis- 
course, is  the  desire  of  always  explaining  with  brevity.  It  is  better 
to  offend  by  too  much  than  by  too  little  breadth  ;  a  style  always 
spirited  and  concise,  such,  for  example,  as  that  of  Sallust  or  TertulliaU; 
nfej^  suit  works  which,  not  being  intended  to  be  spoken,  allow  the 


PKECisiON.  885 

Precision  is  not  to  be  restricted  to  isolated  sentences.  As 
there  may  be  too  many  words  in  a  sentence,  there  may  also 
be  too  many  sentences  in  a  paragraph  ;  and  the  general  tissue 
of  the  style  may  be  loose  as  well  as  that  of  a  period.  A 
rule  which  we  have  given  for  discourse  as  a  whole,  may  here 
be  applied.  Everything  must  hasten  to  the  conclusion.  We 
must  not  have  two  sentences  where  one  will  suffice.  We 
must  not  delay  the  reader  when  he  would  advance.  Our  mo- 
tion must  not  be  less  rapid  than  that  of  his  m.ind.*  He 
doubtless  might  suffer  himself  to  be  amused  on  the  way,  by 
brilliant  displays  of  thought  and  flights  of  imagination ;  but 
the  pleasure  he  would  hence  find,  would  be  no  apology  to  the 
orator,  whose  business  is  not  to  amuse  his  hearer,  but  to  lead 
him  on  to  a  determinate  end.  Everything,  even  the  orna- 
ments of  style,  ought  to  tend  to  that  result ;  oratorical  dis- 
course admits  of  no  useless  charms.  What,  then,  shall  we 
say  of  those  deviations  and  diversions  which  have  not  even 
the  merit  of  amusing,  of  those  unmeaning  sentences  which 
do  nothing  but  retard  the  movement,  of  a  loose  tissue,  whose 
frettings  are  not  even  disguised  by  the  embroidery  ?  Let  us 
adopt  this  general  rule :  That  there  be  nothing  intervening 
between  ideas  which  complete  one  another,  and  between  which 
the  mind  does  not  require  a  pause.  If  there  be  anything  be- 
tween two  ideas,  it  should  be  an  idea  which  is  suited  to  smooth 

reader  leisure  and  libei'ty  to  review;  but  not  a  sermon,  which  by  it8 
rapidity,  may  escape  from  the  most  attentive  hearer.  We  must  not 
suppose,  indeed,  that  it  is  always  thus  ;  such,  at  least,  should  be  the 
perspicuity  of  the  discourse,  that  it  will  convey  light  even  to  tho 
most  listless  minds,  as  the  sun  strikes  our  eyes  when  we  are  not 
thinking  of  it,  and  almost  in  spite  of  us.  The  highest  effect  of  this 
qiiality  is  reached  not  when  one  may  understand  what  we  say,  but 
when  he  cannot  but  understand  it."  (Rollin,  Traite  des  etudes,  livre 
v.,  chap,  ii.,  art  i.,  De  la  maniere  dont  un  predicateur  doit  parler.) 

*  See  D'Alembert,  Reflexions  sur  V elocution  oratoire,  in  his  Melanges^ 
tome  ii.,  p.  345. 


386  RAPIDITY. 

the  passage  from  one  to  the  other,  like  sluices  which  prevent  a 
boat  from  making  too  sudden  and  too  forcible  a  descent.  I 
admit  that  without  such  intermediate  ideas,  the  texture  of  the 


ri^ic 


style  might,  by  its  compactness,  become  hard  and 

But  if  they  be  superfluous,  the  style  is  loose  and  dragging. 

The  orator  is  a  traveller ;  the  hearer  travels  with  him. 

De  leur  robe  trainante  ils  relevent  les  plis.* 

We  must  never — and  with  this  remark  I  conclude — allow 
precision  to  render  our  style  abstract  and  dry. 

We  may  doubtless  fall  upon  lively  expressions,  we  may 
attain  to  elegance  which  is  closely  allied  to  precision,  we  may 
become  ingenious  by  the  habitual  study  of  forms  in  which 
thought  is  compressed  and  condensed,  but  the  whole  is  want- 
ing in  richness  and  in  color. f 

Precision,  applied  to  the  general  texture  of  the  diction, 
becomes  rapidity.  This  is  not  only  a  form  but  a  quality  of 
style ;  style  to  the  general  composition  is  what  man  is  to  the 
world,  a  microscosm.  Man  is  a  world  in  miniature,  and  style 
is  discourse  in  miniature,  with  all  its  laws  and  all  its  charac- 
teristics. Eapidity  is  not  precipitance,  but  the  economy  of 
time  and  space.  There  are  two  forms  of  style  ;  one  which 
concentrates  the  elements  of  each  idea,  the  other  which  ampli- 
fies them.  Bossuet's  sentences  are  Massillon's  paragraphs, 
and  neither  of  them  is  to  be  censured.  Bossuet,  sometimes, 
is  too  rapid,  and  Massillon  too  long ;  but  the  first  also  is 
often  brief  and  the  other  long,  with  propriety.  The  move- 
ment of  Bossuet  is  more  majestic,  more  imposing ;  the 
phraseology  of  Massillon,  flowery  as  it  is,  is  sometimes  drag- 
ging. The  Petit  Carhie,  which  is  regarded  as  his  most 
highly-finished  work,  is  not  the  most  eloquent.     It  often  de- 

*  "  They  raise  the  folds  of  their  training  garments." 
f  The  substantive  instead  of  the  verb.     The  reply  of  children  to 
the  question,   "What  is  a  thing? — It  is  when  we  .  .  .  ." 


PROPORTION. — ORDER.  887 

velops,  and  it  develops  exceedingly  well ;  but  it  also  am- 
plifies, expressing  the  same  idea  under  two  or  three  different 
forms.  There  is  a  difference  between  them,  for  the  words 
are  different,  but  it  amounts  to  almost  nothing,  and  is  not 
worth  the  trouble  which  it  costs.  This  form,  which  is  repro- 
duced in  every  part  of  the  volume,  is  somewhat  tedious. 
Bossuet  doubtless  is  often  too  rapid.  We  must,  in  short, 
amplify  when  it  is  proper,  but  we  must  also  know  how  to 
retrench.* 

This  leads  us  to  speak  o? proportion^  which  consists  in  giving 
each  idea  the  place  and  the  degree  of  development,  which  be- 
long to  it,  in  the  plan  of  the  discourse.  In  regard  to  proportion 
Bossuet  often  fails  in  his  sermons,  and  hence,  though  he  has 
more  genius  than  Massillon  and  Bourdaloue,  we  place  him 
below  them  as  a  preacher.  While  every  one  reads  Massil- 
lon and  many  read  Bourdaloue,  Bossuet  is  read  by  few,  al- 
though exceedingly  brilliant,  because  he  is  wanting  in  propor- 
tion.    This  same  fault  injures  passages  otherwise  excellent. f 

§  3.    Order.  -i 

Precision  led  us  to  speak  of  the  texture  of  style.  We 
condemned  everything  which  retards  or  interrupts  the  suc- 
cession of  thought.  Herein  we  applied  to  style  what  we 
have  said  of  the  general  composition  of  discourse.  Within 
reduced  proportions,  we  have  been  but  insisting  on  that  con- 
tinuous progression  which  Theremin  recommends.  We  now 
touch  on  another  quality  of  style  :  order. 

*  "We  contrast  Bossuet  and  Massillon  in  a  passage  taken  from  each 
of  them.  See  Bossuet,  Oraison  funebre  de  3Iichel  le  Tellier,  {dans  le 
choix  d'oraisons  f^mebres,  edition  Yillemain,  182'?,  p.  2'73,)  and  Massil- 
lon, tome  vii.,  p.  128,  edition  Mequignon,  "Nous  n'avons  de  grand." 
The  paragraphs  of  Massillon  are  so  many  couplets.  They  are  want- 
ing in  freedom  and  variety. 

•)•  See,  on  this  point,  the  sermon  of  Massillon,  sur  VOublides  in- 
jures, and  that  of  P.  de  la  Rue,  sur  le  Pechcur  mourant,  p.  569 


888  ORDER. 

All  the  other  qualities  of  which  we  have  spoken  are,  as 
it  were  lost,  without  order,  which  puts  in  its  place  each 
paragraph  in  the  discourse,  each  sentence  in  the  paragraph, 
each  word  in  the  sentence.  And  as  to  perspicuity,  of  which 
we  first  spoke,  it  cannot  dispense  with  order ;  order  is 
chiefly  essential  to  it.  As  there  is  no  force  without  per- 
spicuity, so  there  is  no  perspicuity  without  order.  Apart 
from  perspicuity,  moreover,  it  is  with  style  in  which  order 
reigns,  as  with  a  wall,  the  stones  of  which  are  well  united  ;  it 
is  much  more  compact  and  strong.  Now,  it  is  the  effect  of 
order  in  style  to  connect  the  ideas  closely,  whence  also  re- 
sults strength. 

The  law  of  order  not  only  proscribes  gross  faults,  manifest 
transpositions;  it  is  opposed  to  everything  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  ideas,  which  is  not  as  well  ordered  as  possible. 
It  requires  the  texture  of  the  style  to  be  as  compact  as  possi- 
ble. It  does  this,  by  the  very  formula  which  it  uses,  since, 
according  to  this  formula,  for  which  no  other  can  be  substi- 
tuted, it  is  necessary  that  each  idea  should  be  followed  by 
that  which  among  all  the  author  expresses  is  nearest  to  it.  I 
do  not  say,  absolutely  the  nearest  possible,  since  this  would 
forbid  the  suppression  of  those  intermediate  ideas  which  con- 
stitutes the  rapidity  of  the  style  and  contributes  to  its 
beauty.  If  the  idea  which  is  logically  nearest  to  another 
idea  is  separated  from  it  in  the  discourse,  by  some  other, 
there  is  already  disorder  in  it,  which,  though  not  visible  per- 
haps, is  not  on  that  account  without  influence.  And  if  this 
fault,  small  as  it  may  be,  is  often  afterwards  reproduced,  if 
this  negligence  is  habitual,  an  effect  results  from  it,  not  ap~ 
preciable,  perhaps,  because  it  is  negative,  but  neverthele?^/^ 
considerable.  It  produces  weariness  and  doubt  in  the  mi):  1 
of  the  hearer,  which  prevent  him  from  receiving  a  complete 
and  well-sustained  impression. 

Every  mind  instinctively  requires  order.     Every  mind 


OKDER.  389 

delights  in  order  and  is  pained  by  its  opposite.  It  suffers 
for  the  want  of  it,  without  knowing  why,  and  perhaps  without 
being  apprized  that  it  does  suffer  ;  we  have  an  uneasiness  like 
that  which  one  feels  in  a  tainted  atmosphere,  or,  not  to  leave 
the  intellectual  sphere,  like  suffering  which  we  experience  from 
sophistry,  when  the  fault  in  the  reasoning  is  not  detected.  If  it 
is  man's  destiny  to  err,  still  his  natural  element,  his  essence 
so  to  speak,  is  truth.  However  unjust  a  mind  may  be,  and 
whatever  errors  it  may  allow  in  itself,  it  does  not  allow  errors 
in  others.  The  same  mind  which  does  not  lead  others 
aright  would  itself  be  so  led,  and  every  deviation  from  the 
true  route  which  perhaps  it  is  itself  unable  to  indicate,  dis- 
concerts and  wearies  it.  The  mere  interposition  of  a  thought 
which  the  progress  of  the  ideas  does  not  yet  call  for,  or  calls 
for  no  longer,  destroys  rising  interest.  A  mind  hesitating, 
uncertain,  no  longer  lends  itself  to  the  orator's  intention,  if 
we  may  say  indeed  the  orator  has  an  intention  ;  for  we  see 
him  assailed  by  several  ideas  at  once,  without  knowing  to 
which  he  is  to  attend,  and  in  the  perplexity,  breaking  his 
thought  at  every  stroke,  retracing  his  steps,  mistaking  grada- 
tions and  confounding  relations.  The  fact  may  be  inexplica- 
ble ;  it  is  nevertheless  real,  and  the  certainty  is,  that  where 
there  is  less  of  order,  there  is,  equally,  less  of  power.* 

If  order,  or  the  coimection  of  ideas,  is  always  necessary,  it 
is  especially  so  in  the  eloquence  of  the  pulpit,  in  which  we 
should  spare  the  hearer  every  useless  and  unwelcome  trouble. 
We  should  even  leave  something  to  be  supplied  by  a  hearer 

*  M.  Yinet  proposed  to  introduce  here  two  passages  on  Singulari- 
ty, wliich  he  wrote  for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  in  the  way  of  com- 
parison, the  importance  and  necessity  of  order.  Only  a  fragment  of 
the  first  of  these  passages  has  been  found,  and  as  it  is  on  this  account 
impossible  to  make  the  comparison  designated  by  the  author,  we 
have  thought  it  better  to  suppress  the  unfinished  paragraph. — [Edi- 

TOKS.] 


390  ORDER. 

as  well  as  a  reader ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  allowed  to  us,  to 
require  him  to  do  a  work  which  properly  belongs  to  us. 

There  is  the  same  difference  between  logical  and  orator- 
ical order  in  style,  that  there  is  in  the  composition  as  a  whole. 
Applying  then  to  style,  the  rules  of  oratory,  we  say  : 

Let  that  which  is  more  general  precede  that  which  is  more 
particular ; 

Let  that  which  is  less  striking  precede  that  which  is  more  so  ; 

Let  the  form  in  which  an  idea  is  concentrated,  follow  one 
in  which  it  is  expressed  more  at  large. 

This  order  is  violated  by  precipitance,  by  the  attraction  of 
accidental  or  terminal  ideas,  which  create  connections  which 
are  true,  but  not  the  true  connections. 

No  great  writer,  no  writer  who  is  classed  with  models,  is 
defective  in  this  point,  any  more  than  in  the  prece  ing  ones ;  or 
rather  no  writer  who  has  not  strictly  and  exactly  observed 
this  law,  has  ever  been  placed  among  models,  however  dis- 
tinguished for  invention,  for  strength,  or  for  brilliance.  It  is 
well  indeed  to  observe,  that  if  the  combination  of  all  the 
qualities  which  we  have  enumerated  does  not  form  a  great 
writer,  others,  though  they  may  seem  to  be  of  a  superior 
nature,  will  not  suffice  for  this,  independently  of  the  former. 

Let  these  verses  from  Racine,  in  Athalie,  be  examined  after 
this  statement : 

L'enterprise,  sans  doute,  est  graude  et  perilleuse, 

J'attaque  sur  son  tronc  uue  reine  orgueilleuse, 

Qui  volt  sous  ses  drapeaux  niarclier  un  camp  nombreux, 

De  hard  is  etrangers,  d'infi  deles  Hebreux  ; 

Mais  ma  force  est  au  Dieu  dont  rinrrct  me  guide, 

Songez  qv!en  cet  enfant  tout  Israel  rtnidcy 

Deju  ce  Dieu  vengeur  commence  a  la  tvoubler  ; 

Deja,  trompant-ses  soins,  j'ai  su  vous  rassembler.  *  etc. 


*  Racink,  Athalie,  acte  iv.,  scene  ill. 

"Th'  attempt  doubtless  is  great  and  perilous 
I  attack  a  liuuglity  inoaarcli  on  her  throne, 


OEDER.  •  891 

And  these  verses  of  Andre  Chenier  in  le  Mendiant : 

n  ouvre  tin  oeil  avide,  et  long  temps  envisage 
L'etranger.     Puis  enfin  sa  voix  trouve  un  passage ; 
Est-ce  toi  Cleotas?  toi  qu'ainsi  je  revoi ! 
Tout  ici  fappartient.     O  mon  pere  !  est-ee  toi? 
Je  rongis  que  mes  yeux  aient  pu  te  meeonnaitre, 

0  Cleotas  !  mon  pere  !    O  toi,  qui  fus  mon  maitre, 
Viens,  je  n'ai  fait  ici  que  garder  ton  tresor, 

Et  ton  ancien  Lyeus  vent  te  servir  encor.f 

Compare  the  same  group  of  ideas  differently  arranged  in 
the  two  following  passages.  The  subject  is  the  foolishness  of 
Christianity  : 

1.  "Those  who  accuse  Christianity  of  foolishness  should  at 
least  admit  that  it  foresaw  and  braved  this  reproach.  It  was 
in  haste  to  charge  itself  with  it.  It  has  avowed  the  bold  de- 
sign of  saving  men  by  foolishness.  It  was  not  under  an  il- 
lusion ;  it  knew  that  its  doctrine  would  be  regarded  as  mad- 
ness ;  it  knew  this  before  experience,  before  any  one  had  said 
it,  and  with  this  foolishness  in  its   mouth,  with  this   foolish- 

Who  sees  advancing  under  her  banners, 
A  numerous  band  of  intrepid  strangers, 
And  unbelieving  Hebrews.     But  my  strength 
Is  in  that  God  whose  cause  directs  me  ; 
Conceive  all  Israel  hound  up  in  this  child. 
Already  does  God  avenge  himself  on  her, 
Already  eluding  her  wrathful  vigilance. 
You  I  have  been  able  to  muster,  etc." — ^Tr. 
*"  "With  eager  gaze,  he  long  the  stranger  eyes. 
His  tongue  at  length  finds  utterance.     Is't  thou 
Cleotas  !  thou,  whom  thus  again  I  see  ? 
All  here  is  thine.     My  father,  is  it  thou  ? 

1  blush  that  thee  my  eyes  should  have  mistaken. 
O  my  father  Cleotas !     O  thou  -who 

My  master  wast,  come,  here  nought  have  I  done 
But  thy  treasure  keep.     Thy  ancient  Lycus 
Still  longs  to  be  thy  servant." — Tr. 


392  NATURALNESS. 

ness  as  its  standard,  it  went  forth  to  the  conquest  of  the 
world.  Christianity  then  has  not  left  to  infidelity  the  satis- 
faction of  taxing  it  with  foolishness,  and  if  it  is  mad,  it  is  in 
good  earnest  and  willing  to  be  so." 

2.  "  Christianity  has  not  left  to  infidelity  the  satisfaction  of 
being  the  first  to  tax  it  with  foolishness.  It  has  been  in  haste 
to  bring  this  accusation  against  itself.  It  has  avowed  the 
bold  design  of  saving  men  by  foolishness.  It  has  not  been 
under  an  illusion ;  it  has  known  that  its  doctrine  would  be 
regarded  as  madness ;  it  knew  this  before  experience  ;  it 
knew  it  before  any  one  had  said  it,  and  with  this  foolishness  in 
its  mouth,  with  this  foolishness  as  its  standard,  it  went  forth 
to  the  conquest  of  the  world.  If  then  it  is  mad,  it  is  in  good 
earnest,  and  is  willing  to  be  so  ;  and  those  who  reproach  it 
with  foolishness,  are  at  least  contrained  to  confess  that  it  has 
foreseen  their  reproach,  and  braved  it."* 

§  4.  Naturalness. 

r/  This  is  one  of  those  things  which  can  be  defijied  only  by 
their  effects  or  their  symptoms,  inasmuch  as  any  different 

*  definition  would  itself  have  to  be  defined.  We  will  say  then 
that  the  natural  style  is  that  in  which  art  is  not  perceptible ; 
whether  because  there  is  no  mixture  of  art  in  it,  or  from  the 
force  of  art.  For  the  triumph  of  art  is  to  cause  itself  to  be 
overlooked  or  to  be  undiscoverable  except  on  reflection. 

Art  is  not  the  mere  imitation  of  nature,  as  it  has  long  since 
been  said  to  be ;  we  reject  this  definition,  and  maintain  that 
art  aspires  to  give  to  its  creations  the  character  of  natural 
productions.     It  is  successful,  when  it  is  able  to  combine  the 

*  ViNKT,  on  the  foolishness  of  truth,  in  the  Nouveax  discoicrs  sur 
quelqites  sujets  religieux.  Study,  with  the  same  object,  a  paragraph 
from  Massillon,  i:iur  I'Oubli  du  derriier  Jour:  "Sur  quoi  vous  ras- 
surez,  vous  encore  ?  etc.,"  and  the  passages  from  Fenclon  and  Bos- 
suet,  examined  by  Condillac,  Art  d^A'crirc,  liv.  iii,,  cap.  ii.  Massillon 
winds  up  an  idea  admirably. 


NATUEALNESS.  893 

true  and  the  extraordinary.  Neither  the  true  which  is  not 
extraordinary,  nor  the  extraordinary  which  is  not  true,  is  an 
object  of  art. 

That  which  in  one  age  or  country  seems  natural,  does  not 
seem  so  in  another.  From  our  point  of  view,  the  panoply 
of  St.  Paul  (Ephesians,  vi.  13-17)  is  not  natural.  The 
oriental  style  does  not  appear  more  so.  Epochs  of  half- 
civilization,  epochs,  also,  the  exquisite  performances  of 
which  appear  to  be  of  a  species  of  naivete,  and  those  of 
extreme  civilization,  are  little  favorable  to  the  natural  in 
style ;  to  restore  us  to  this,  is  the  object  of  mental  culture. 

It  is  as  the  proof  or  sign  of  sincerity  that  the  natural 
pleases.  The  absence  of  it  induces  a  suspicion  of  that  of 
sincerity,  although  one  may  be  very  cordial  without  being 
natural ;  in  that  case,  however,  we  must  indeed  be  cordial. 
Who  are  more  cordial,  more  moved  and  more  moving,  than 
Saint  Augustine  and  Saint  Bernard  ?  and  yet  they  are  not 
natural. 

In  works  of  art,  in  writing,  the  natural  pleases  on  two  ac- 
counts ;  as  more  unexpected  and  as  more  uncommon.  It  is 
partly  from  the  rarity  of  entire  naturalness,  that  we  expe- 
rience such  pleasure  in  meeting  with  it.  "When,"  says 
Pascal,  "  we  meet  with  the  natural  style,  we  are  surprised 
and  delighted ;  for  we  expected  to  find  an  author  and  we 
have  found  a  man.  Whilst  men  of  good  taste  who  look  into 
a  book,  in  the  hope  of  finding  a  man,  are  altogether  surprised 
to  find  an  author."* 

Boileau,  in  his  Eloge  du  Vrai,  has  not  forgotten  to  praise 
the  natural  style : 

Cessons  de  nous  flatter,     II  n'est  esprit  si  droit 
Que  ne  soit  imposteur  et  faux  par  quelque  endroit, 
Sans  cesse  on  prend  le  masque,  et,  quittant  la  nature, 
Ou  craint  ce  se  montrer  sous  sa  propre  figure, 

*  Pascal,  Pensees,  part  i.,  art.  x.,  §  xxviiL 


394  NATURALNESS. 

Par  la  le  plus  sincere  assez  souvent  deplait. 

Rarement  un  esprit  ose  etre  ce  qu'il  est. 
***** 

Chacun  pris  dans  son  air  est  agreable  en  soi ; 

Ce  n'est  que  I'air  d'autrui  qui  pent  deplaier  en  moi.* 

The  natural  may  rise  to  naivete,  and  this  naivete  is  ad- 
mirable in  men  and  subjects  of  a  grave  character.  In  a  child 
the  natural  proceeds  from  naivete ;  that  a  man  should  be- 
come a  child  without  losing  his  gravity  and  maturity,  is  most 
uncommon  and  most  interesting.  The  difference  between 
the  natural  and  naivete  is  this :  The  natural  possesses  and 
recognizes  itself;  naivete  does  neither ;  it  allows  itself  to  be 
surprised  by  its  own  impressions ;  when  all  is  over,  it  will 
be  itself  surprised  at  its  own  utterances.  Bossuet  has  im- 
pressive exemplications  of  the  natural. 

Apart  from  situations  in  actual  life,  it  is  very  difficult  to 
be  perfectly  natural,  that  is  to  say,  perfectly  true.  Either 
we  must  avoid  wholly  the  influence  of  art,  or  give  ourselves 
wholly  up  to  it.  Even  sincerity  gives  no  security  for  the 
natural.  It  is  so  rare,  that  when  we  meet  with  an  orator 
who  is  perfectly  natural,  we  are  tempted  to  ask  of  him : 

Est  ce  vous  qui  parlez,  ou  si  c'est  votre  role  ?f 

If  there  is  pleasure  in  finding  a  man^  we  should  have  it 
when  we  hear  discourses  from  the  pulpit ;  and  here  it  would 

*  BoiLEAU,  Epttre  ix. 

"  Cease  thyself  to  flatter.     No  mind  so  pure, 
But  has  some  taint  of  error  and  of  falsehood ; 
We  take  the  mask,  and,  nature  disowning. 
Fear  to  be  seen  in  our  proper  figure. 
The  truest,  tlius,  oft  most  displeasure  gives. 

How  seldom  dares  the  mind  be  what  it  is  I 

***** 

Each,  in  his  own  shape  taken,  pleases  us : 
The  shape  of  others  only  me  disgusts." — Tr. 
f  "  Is  it  you  who  speak,  or  are  you  playing  a  part." 


NATUKALNESS.  895 

seem  there  should  be  less  place  for  the  pleasure  of  surprise. 
May  we  venture  to  say  that  there  is  in  fact  greater  1  That 
which  may  be  natural  in  poetry  may  not  be  so  in  eloquence, 
and  that  of  the  pulpit,  the  chair  of  truth,  from  which  we  speak 
of  God  and  the  most  weighty  interests,  is  behind  other  kinds 
of  eloquence  in  regard  to  this  quality. 

According  to  Theremin,  the  cause,  in  part,  is  the  physical 
condition  of  the  preacher  who  is  removed  from  his  auditory 
and  elevated  above  it.  All  the  fervor  of  Christian  charity  is 
needed  to  transform  the  discourse  into  a  business  matter. 
D'Alembert,  complaining  of  the  academic  style,  says :  "It  were 
better  called  the  style  of  the  pulpit."*  Fenelon  has  earnestly  en- 
deavored to  restore  nature  to  the  pulpit,  in  respect  both  of  style 
and  of  conceiving  and  planning,f  which  are  all  closely  connected. 

I  forbear  to  indicate  the  different  ways  in  which  we  fail  of 
the  natural.  Why  should  they  all  be  enumerated  1  On  this 
subject,  of  what  use  were  negative  rules  1  We  should  not 
be  rendered  natural  by  being  put  on  our  guard  against  vio- 
lations of  nature.  The  source  of  the  natural  is  more  posi- 
tive and  more  vital.  Darkness  should  be  absorbed  by  light. 
In  avoiding  one  fault,  we  shall  fall  into  another,  unless  we 
strongly  adhere  to  principle  ;  and  to  do  this,  an  orator  must 
determine  to  be  true,  and  to  make  his  discourse  not  a  work, 
but  an  action.  It  is  to  this  that  Brougham  ascribes  the  supe- 
riority of  the  style  of  Demosthenes.  What,  in  fact,  is  it 
that  a  man  calls  natural,  in  a  discourse  which  he  hears  1  It 
is  a  mode  of  expression  which  he  feels  he  himself  would  have 
involuntarily  used,  if  he  had  been  in  the  position  and  frame 
of  mind  which  are  professed  by  the  orator.  A  mode  of 
expression  which  leads  him  to  say :  How  could  one  have 
spoken  otherwise '?  And  is  it  not  the  first  form  of  expression 
which  must  needs  have  come  to  the  mind  1 

*  D'Alembert,  Melanges,  tome  ii.,  p.  348. 
I  See  his  dialogues  on  Eloquence. 


396  CONGRUITY. 

Not  then  to  speak  of  affectation,  of  exaggeration,  of  witti- 
cisms, of  prolonged  metaphors,  of  antitheses,  etc.,  we  only  re- 
mark, that  there  is  danger  of  not  being  natural  in  transfer- 
ring to  the  pulpit  traits  or  forms  which  are  natural  in  sec- 
ular oratory,  or  in  imitating  the  particular  form  of  the  mas- 
ter-pieces in  our  own  kind  of  oratory.  Not  without  caution, 
not  without  reserve,  should  we  study  the  orators. 

Be  that  which  you  would  appear  to  be. 

§  5.    Congruity. 

In  a  very  general  sense,  all  the  qualities  above  recommend- 
ed are  congruities  of  different  kinds.  We  now  speak  of  con- 
gruity in  a  special  sense,  namely,  the  correspondence  of  the 
expression  to  the  character  of  the  ideas  which  it  should  in- 
vest, to  the  kind  of  the  composition,  the  subject  it  treats  of, 
the  end  it  proposes.  The  style  may  be  perspicuous,  correct, 
precise,  natural,  without  being  congruous.  Congruity  pro- 
ceeds from  a  just  sense  of  the  subject,  and  consists  in  not  of- 
fending or  obscuring  this  sense  in  others. 

We  restrict  ourselves  of  course  to  the  particular  kind  of 
discourse  we  are  treating  of,  to  preaching  ;  for  what  have  we 
to  say  of  congruity  in  general,  which  the  name  alone  has  not 
already  expressed  ? 

A  preliminary  question  occurs.  We  speak  of  a  language 
of  the  pulpit ;  is  there  a  language  of  the  pulpit  1  Doubtless 
thei-e  is,  if  we  take  the  question  as  referring  to  the  assemblage 
of  congruities  required  in  a  discourse  which  is  connected  with 
worship  and  pronounced  in  a  sacred  place.  But  if  we  go 
beyond  this,  if  the  question  relates  not  to  congruity,  but  con- 
ventionality, if  a  certain  dialect  be  intended,  if  it  be  asked 
whether  a  sacred  orator  is  to  use  a  language  subject  to  dif- 
ferent rules  from  those  which  result  from  the  nature  of  his 
mission,  and  which  a  just  sense  of  his   position  suggests  to 


SIMPLICITY.  397 


him,  we  answer,  no.  Li  this  sense,  there  is  not  a  language  of 
the  pulpit.*     Let  us  for  a  moment  hear  M.  Theremin  : 

"  To  this  question,  What  language  is  suited  to  the  pulpit 
orator  ?  some  answer,  the  language  of  the  Bible  ;  others, 
that  of  books  ;  others,  again,  that  of  ordinary  life  ;  some,  a 
language  simple  and  natural ;  others,  a  language  elaborately 
artistic,  a  poetical  language,  rich  with  imagery.  The  lan- 
guage of  some  celebrated  preachers,  is  also  sometimes  given 
as  a  model.  For  my  part,  if  I  am  asked  what  language  ought 
the  preacher  to  use  in  the  pulpit,  I  can  only  answer,  his  own. 
He  has  an  inward  experience  of  the  christian  life,  and  is 
constantly  nourished  by  the  word  of  God,  with  many  express- 
ions and  images  of  which  he  has  become  familiar.  Now  this 
christian  life  does  not  form  a  separate  current  in  his  life,  but 
unites  and  mixes  itself  with  his  whole  internal  life,  consisting 
of  his  imagination,  his  sensibility,  his  character,  all  the  faculties 
of  his  mind,  of  the  experiences  of  his  life,  of  his  scientific  and 
literary  culture.  From  all  these  combined  elements  results 
an  inward  speech,  the  language  in  which  he  speaks  the  truths 
of  salvation  to  himself  and  to  God.  This  is  the  fundamental 
tone  of  the  speech  which  he  should  use  in  the  pulpit.  Let 
every  one  then  assume  his  own  individuality,  without  exagger- 
ation, without  expressing  more  or  less  than  is  in  him,  always 
endeavoring  not  to  exhibit  whatever  he  may  have  that  is  rough 
and  severe,  but  rather  to  allay  it  by  imitating  Jesus  Christ, 
the  most  perfect  of  models."f 

These  ideas,  well  digested,  lead  us  into  all  the  truth  on  the 
style  of  the  pulpit.  Let  us,  however,  consider  more  in  de- 
tail, the  congruities  of  this  style. 

The  first  is  simplicity^  which  must  not  be  confounded  with 
naturalness.     The  natural  which   should   reign  everywhere 


*  Kanzel-$,^vsi(ih.Q,  iTanzZezs-sprache.     "  Pulpit-language,    Chancery- 
language." 

I  Theremin,  Die  Beredsamkeit  eine  Tugend,  pp.  xxvii.,  xxix. 


898  SIMPLICITY. 

cannot  distinguish  the  style  of  the  pulpit.  But  simplicity, 
which  does  not  strictly  belong  to  every  kind  of  discourse,  is 
one  of  the  congruities  of  sacred  eloquence.  Besides,  simplici- 
ty may  be  subjected  to  rule ;  it  may  be  regulated,  not  so  the 
natural. 

Naturalness  and  simplicity  are  sometimes  confounded. 
They  are,  it  is  true,  related  to  each  other.  One  can  scarcely 
be  simple  without  being  natural ;  but  we  may  be  natural 
without  being  simple.  The  natural  consists  in  being  oneself,  a 
thing  assuredly  very  rare  ;  the  perfectly  natural,  also,  is  little 
common ;  naivete  still  less  so ;  but  art  furnishes  no  means 
of  becoming  natural ;  it  can  only  show  to  those  who  explore 
it  that  iTiOthing  is  gained  by  separation  from  nature,  and  that 
the  beautiful  and  the  natural  are  inseparable.  The  natural, 
moreover,  is  not  an  object  of  art ;  it  is  the  first  prerequisite 
of  art ;  it  is,  in  some  sort,  a  security  against  the  abuses  of  art ; 
it  is  the  ground  of  art.  Literary  advancements  have  been 
essentially  but  a  return  to  the  natural ;  the  natural  cannot 
be  imitated ;  the  worst  of  affectations  is  the  affectation  of 
the  natural. 

But  as  we  may  be  wanting  in  simplicity  without  being 
wanting  precisely  in  naturalness ;  as  the  natural  is  equally 
necessary  in  all  kinds  of  discourse,  while  some  require  more, 
others  less  of  simplicity  ;  there  is  something  to  be  said  con- 
cerning simplicity,  in  a  course  on  Rhetoric  or  Homiletics. 

Etymologically  speaking,  simplicity  is  the  contrary  of  mul- 
tiplicity ;  simplicity,  the  absence  of  all  folding  or  doubling,  ex- 
cludes the  expression  of  a  second  idea  when  a  first  suffices. 
This,  at  first  view,  gives  it  the  appearance  of  conciseness  ;  but 
conciseness  spares  words,  simplicity  is  the  economy  of  means. 
It  is  this  form  of  style  that  least  disturbs  the  labor  of  thought, 
and  advances  it  to  the  end  by  the  most  direct  road.  It  is, 
however,  in  some  degree  relative.  What  is  not  simple 
enough  for  one  class  of  readers  is  sufficiently  so  for  another. 


POPULAKITY.  399 

We  shall  here  call  that  simple  which  will  appear  to  be  such 
to  all  the  individuals,  or  at  least  to  all  the  classes  of  which 
the  preacher's  auditory  is  ordinarily  composed,  and  with  this 
understanding  we  add,  that  simplicity  excludes,  on  the  one 
hand,  useless  circumlocution  and  complexity,  profusion  of 
figures,  ambitious  ornaments;  and  on  the  other,  tenuous 
thoughts,  subtility,  abstractness.  It  excludes,  however,  neither 
shades  nor  affluence  of  expression.  One  may  be  at  the  same 
time  magnificent  and  simple,  simple  and  delicate. 

Simplicity  in  a  pulpit  orator  is  especially  important.  It 
is  the  ornament  of  great  thoughts,  as  perspicuity  is  of  pro- 
found ones ;  and  all  the  thoughts  which  the  preacher  is 
charged  to  transmit  are  great. 

Simplicity  is  inseparable  from  seriousness.  Nothing  has 
less  the  appearance  of  seriousness,  nothing  more  induces  the 
suspicion  of  insincerity  than  nicety  and  refining. 

Finally,  simplicity  is  included  in  the  consideration  and  re- 
spect which  are  due  from  the  preacher  to  an  auditory  consist- 
ing of  persons  of  different  degrees  of  intelligence. 

In  oratorical  discourse,  the  true  name  of  simplicity  is  that 
o^  popularity.  Popularity,  which  should  also  characterize 
strongly  the  thoughts  and  arguments,  consists,  as  regards  the 
style,  in  language  composed  of  expressions  which  are  famil- 
iar to  the  majority.  Popular  language  is  that  which  all  classes 
of  society  alike  understand,  the  common  ground  on  which 
they  meet  and  communicate  with  each  other  ;  it  is  a  language 
in  their  habitual  use  of  which,  some  add,  others  retrench 
something,  but  which  is  not  on  that  account  less  the  language 
of  every  one,  the  only  language  of  every  one,  although  it 
may  not  be,  such  as  it  is,  the  language  of  any  one. 

The  word  popularity^  awakens  at  this  day  the  idea  of  a 
peculiar  manner  in  art  and  style,  and  one  which  is  more  or 
less  disreputable.  Popular  writing  is  writing  of  its  own  sort, 
which  is  scarcely  allowed  a  place  in  literature.     It  has  not 


400  POPULARITY. 

been  always  thus  distinguished.  Not  to  speak  of  epochs  of 
barbarism,  in  which  all  classes  are  alike  rude,  there  have  been 
highly-civilized  ages  which  have  had  but  one  language.  Gre- 
cian literature  has  no  writings  which  are  specially  popular ; 
popularity  is  the  character  of  all.  Even  at  our  point  of 
view,  the  great  productions  of  ancient  art  may  be  regarded 
as  popular.  And  among  the  highest  modern  achievements 
in  art,  the  most  distinguished  are,  on  the  whole,  the  most 
popular  ;  and  we  ought  not  to  be  surprised  at  this  ;  what  in- 
terests man  in  all  classes,  is  superior  to  what  can  be  under- 
stood and  relished  only  by  men  of  a  certain  class.  One  may 
be  popular  without  being  great,  but  not  great  without  being 
popular.  To  be  pathetic,  to  be  sublime,  we  must,  by  pro- 
ceeding with  the  mean  degree  of  culture  and  development, 
strike  the  keys  which  are  the  same  in  all  men. 

Before  a  promiscuous  auditory,  we  incur  a  risk  in  not  being 
popular ;  we  always  gain  when  we  are  so.  What  we  do  with 
a  view  to  being  popular,  that  is  to  say,  to  reach  at  once  the 
greatest  number  of  good  minds,  is  not  lost  upon  those  of 
the  highest  cultivation ;  they  enjoy  it  the  more  from  their 
superior  cultivation ;  and  in  this  view,  the  orator's  success,  in 
this  way  obtained,  is  of  the  highest  kind,  while  that  which  is 
done  for  the  special  purpose  of  pleasing  a  certain  class,  is 
lost  on  others,  without,  in  fact,  succeeding  better  with  the 
class  whose  applause  was  desired,  or  whose  assent  was 
sought. 

The  true  region,  the  natural  medium  of  eloquence,  em- 
braces the  thoughts  of  all,  and  consequently,  as  far  as  possi- 
ble, the  language  of  all.  Eloquence  is  the  contact  of  man 
with  man,  by  their  human,  not  by  their  accidental  or  individ- 
ual sides.  The  language,  then,  which  is  adapted  to  eloquence, 
is  a  general,  common,  customary  language ;  nothing  rare  or 
exceptional  is  here  in  place.  I  do  not  say  that  one  cannot  be 
eloquent  on  very  special  themes,  or  in  their  behalf;  but  one 


POPULARITY.  401 

cannot  be  oratorical  on  such  themes,  except  before  a  very  se- 
lect auditory,  to  whom  such  themes  present  no  difficulties, 
and  who  can  readily  resolve  special  ideas  into  general  ones, 
the  only  ones  which  are  oratorical.  Cicero  doubtless  rested 
no  less  on  experience  than  theory,  when  he  said :  '''■In  dicendo 
vitium  vel  maximum  est  a  vulgari  genere  orationis  atque  a 
consuetudine  communis  sensus  abhorrere  f^*  a  passage,  of 
which  this,  from  D'Alembert,  seems  to  be  a  translation : 
"  An  orator  should  never  forget  that  it  is  to  the  multitude 
that  he  speaks ;  that  it  is  them  which  he  is  to  move,  to  melt, 
to  draw.  Eloquence  which  is  not  for  the  majority  is  not  elo- 
quence."! 

If  this  maxim  is  just  in  application  to  eloquence  in  general, 
it  is  especially  so  as  to  the  eloquence  of  the  pulpit.  Nothing 
is  more  popular  than  the  themes  of  preaching  ;  for  nothing 
is  more  general,  more  common  to  all.  Nothing  more  com- 
pletely effaces  the  distinctions  of  rank  and  education  among 
men.  Nothing  is  more  purely  human.  It  is  then,  if  we 
may  so  speak,  a  purely  human  language  that  the  themes  of 
the  pulpit  require.  Here,  if  we  would  rise,  we  must  de- 
scend ;  and  if  we  descend,  we  shall  rise.  As  the  body  is 
more  than  raiment,  substance  more  than  accident,  the  genus 
more  than  the  species,  so  man  is  more  than  any  of  the  parti- 
cular conditions  or  forms  of  humanity ;  to  reach  man 
through  the  subdivisions  and  shades  of  humanity  we  must 
rise ;  and  the  majesty  of  the  pulpit  displays  itself  chiefly  in 
separating  man  from  whatever  is  accessory  to  him  or  added 
by  events,  in  order  to  seize  him  in  that  lofty  generality  in 
which  he  corresponds  to  God  and  touches  the  infinite.     The 

*  Cicero,  De  Oratore,  lib.  i.,  cap.  iii.  "  In  eloquence,  the  greatest 
error  that  can  be  incurred,  is  to  deviate  into  abstruse  expressions, 
and  out  of  the  beaten  track  of  common  sense."    [Tran.  Lend.  1808. 

f  Rejlexions  sur  Velocution  oratoire,  dans  les  Melanges,  de  D'Alem- 
bert. 


402  FAMILIARITY. 

eloquence  of  the  pulpit,  then,  is  great  in  proportion  to  its 
popularity,  or  popular  in  proportion  as  it  is  great.  Its  lan- 
guage, of  course,  avoiding  what  is  particular  to  some,  must, 
in  the  selection  of  its  elements,  have  respect  to  what  is  com- 
mon to  all.  The  preacher  is  not  permitted  to  use  abstract 
terms,  scholastic  formulas,  learned  allusions,  subtile  and  nice 
distinctions,  ingenious  but  complicated  terms  of  expression,  a 
certain  kind  and  even  a  certain  degree  of  elegance,  certain 
delicacies  of  art  highly  appreciated  by  professional  men,  but 
lost  upon  the  people. 

Still  popularity  is  not  the  true  name  of  the  simplicity  of 
the  pulpit ;  this  word  rather  indicates  the  elevation  on  which 
we  place  our  auditory,  than  the  relations  in  which  we  place 
ourselves,  or  suppose  ourselves  to  sustain  toward  it.  Now, 
the  preacher's  auditory  is  more  than  a  people,  it  is  a  family  ; 
and  the  simplicity  of  evangelical  discourse  is  not  only  popu- 
larity^ it  is  familiarity.  Familiarity  which  was  long  confined 
to  the  order  of  relations  from  which  it  has  borrowed  its 
name,  ought  not  be  restricted  to  a  circle  so  narrow ;  it  should 
exist  among  men  who  are  not  united  by  the  ties  of  blood, 
who  do  not  live  under  the  same  roof.  It  is  needless  to 
advert  here  to  the  causes  which  have  compressed  it  within 
its  actual  limits,  which  have  rendered  ceremony  and  deco- 
rum so  indispensable  among  those  who  have  sprung  from 
the  same  dust,  are  subject  to  the  same  necessities,  and  alike 
exposed  to  death.  Among  generous  and  congenial  souls, 
intimacy  soon  induces  familiarity  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  de- 
cent and  noble  freedom  which  becomes  brothers.  So  great 
are  the  advantages  of  familiarity,  that  when  it  does  not 
spontaneously  arise,  we  should  be  able  to  establish  it. 
"  There  is  not,"  says  Vauvenargues,  "  a  better  or  more  ne- 
cessary school  than  familiarity.  A  man  whose  whole  life 
is  pent  up  in  a  state  of  reserve,  commits  the  greatest  faults 
when  occasion  obliges  him  to  leave  it,  and  business  occupies 


FAMILIAKITY.  403 

him.  The  only  cure  of  presumption,  of  timidity,  of  foolish 
pride,  is  familiarity  ;  it  is  only  by  free  and  open  intercourse 
that  man  can  be  known,  that  one  can  test  himself,  that 
one  can  analyze  himself,  can  compare  himself  with  others  ; 
here  it  is  that  naked  humanity  is  seen  in  all  its  weakness  and 
in  all  its  strength.  They  who  want  courage  to  seek  truth  in 
these  rough  experiences,  are  profoundly  below  all  true  great- 
ness." 

Between  those  whose  relative  position  prevents  their  meet- 
ing on  a  true  footing  of  familiarity,  if  anything  intermediate 
can  create  this  relation,  it  is  assuredly  God,  or  the  thought  of 
God,  a  thought  before  which  all  differences  and  all  inequali- 
ties disappear.  Now,  he  whose  function  it  is  to  speak  to  his 
fellows  of  God  and  of  God  only,  can  recognize  among  them 
only  men  and  brethren ;  he  approaches  them  only  in  this 
character,  he  assembles  them  around  him  only  under  this 
title,  expressly  indeed  under  this  relation ;  not  only  does 
familiarity  become  his  discourse,  but  a  different  character  mis- 
becomes it.  The  ceremony  of  polite  intercourse  carried  into 
the  pulpit  takes  from  the  discourse  of  the  preacher  all  com- 
m.unicative  virtue  ;  there  remains,  I  know  not  what,  between 
the  speaker  and  the  hearers.  There  is,  in  the  intercourse  of 
friends,  one  of  those  symbols  so  abundant  in  our  social  life 
and  conversation,  which  long*  survive  the  remembrance  of 
the  ideas  which  they  express.  When  two  friends  meet  they 
give-  one  another  the  hand ;  if  it  is  covered  they  first  make  it 
bare ;  man  must  touch  man ;  the  contact  and  pressure  of 
two  naked  hands  make  each  one  sensible  to  the  life  of  the  other. 
A  preacher  who  is  not  familiar,  and  who  carries  into  the  pul- 
pit the  formalities  of  worldly  politeness,  who  holds  himself 
in  reserve,  who  is  not  free,  is  a  friend  who  extends  a  hand  to 
his  friend,  but  a  hand  in  a  glove,  through  which  no  w  arm^h 
or  life  can  be  felt.  What  then  of  him  who,  before  he  gives 
his  hand,  is  careful  to  cover  it, — of  the  preacher,  I  mean,  who 


404:  FAMILIARITY. 

allows  himself  less  freedom,  less  flow  of  heart  hi  the  pulpit 
than  he  does  in  the  ordinary  greetings  and  the  superficial 
intercourse  of  social  life  ?  If  we  understand  well  the  preach- 
er's position,  who,  for  a  few  moments  at  least,  is  invested 
with  the  liberty  of  a  father  and  a  brother,  his  language  should 
be  familiar,  inasmuch  as  it  ought  to  be  open,  and  to  consist 
entirely  of  terms,  of  movements  and  forms  of  expression 
taken  from  the  relations  of  the  family  and  of  friendship. 
This  language  will  indicate,  in  a  lively  manner,  the  relation 
which  should  consciously  exist  between  his  auditory  and 
himse-lf ;  it  will  make  the  impression  that  it  is  not  a  mere 
idea,  but  a  common,  present,  urgent  interest  that  is  at  stake 
between  him  and  his  hearers  ;  it  will  bring  them  nearer  to 
him.  It  is  unnecessary  to  distinguish  the  familiarity  we  have 
in  view,  from  another  familiarity  which  is  indecent  and  ir- 
reverent ;  it  is  in  and  before  everything  animated  by  christian 
sentiment ;  this  sentiment  at  the  same  time  creates  and 
limits  it;  as  it  is  christian  familiarity,  it  is  accompanied, 
necessarily,  with  those  holy  restraints  which  are  not  wanting 
even  in  the  freest  intercourse  of  two  christians  with  one 
another. 

Familiarity,  I  think,  is  not  wanting  in  any  of  the  masters 
of  the  sacred  pulpit ;  it  characterizes  the  most  eminent  among 
them,  more  strongly  and  comjjletely  than  any  others.  It  is 
almost  unknown  among  the  orators  of  the  senate  or  bar ; 
they  may  be  popular  but  hardly  familiar.  How  can  they  be 
so  ?  Is  their  auditory  to  them  a  family  1  Nay,  Xhs-c  citi- 
zens, these  judges,  are  they  in  respect  to  the  orator,  even  for 
one  instant,  men,  nothing  besides  men?  Are  they  not  al- 
ways citizens  and  judges  1  I  do  not  then  hesitate  to  make 
familiarity,  in  an  exclusive  sense,  characteristic  of  pulpit  elo- 
quence. 

In  the  daily  relations  of  life,  and  of  individuals  with  one 
another,  familiarity  leads  us  to  call  things  by  their  names ;  it 


FAMILIAEITY.  405 

prefers  individual  to  generic  designations,  direct  affirmation 
to  reticence  and  insinuation,  precise  to  vague  indications.  In 
some  measure,  it  may,  it  should  do  the  same  in  the  pulpit ; 
it  thus  imparts  to  the  objects  here  treated  a  vivid  impress  of 
reality. 

On  one  trait  of  familiarity  we  ought  for  a  few  moments  to 
dwell.  It  may  seem  to  us,  that  a  sense  of  familiarity  to- 
wards his  hearers,  must  make  it  difficult  to  a  preacher  to 
avoid  speaking  of  himself.  A  minister  of  the  word  of  God 
is  justly  blamed  for  being  occupied  with  himself;  he  ought 
to  wish  to  forget  himself;  but  while  forgetting  himself  com- 
pletely, charity  may  still  induce  him  to  speak  of  himself. 
Oratorical  discourse  is  not  a  book,  it  is  a  direct,  proximate, 
personal,  urgent  action.  The  orator's  personality  is  to  be 
here  regarded  as  something.  He,  a  man,  comes  as  a  repre- 
sentative of  God,  but  he  comes  spontaneously,  prompted  by 
love,  to  discourse  to  a  certain  number  of  his  fellows  and  his 
brethren,  on  their  interests  and  his  own.  In  every  case,  but 
especially  if  he  addresses  his  parish,  he  is  in  the  position  of 
a  father  of  a  family  and  not  of  a  stranger.  He  is  an  ambas- 
sador or  a  deputy  in  a  sense  different  from  that  in  which  a 
man  is  one  who  has  been  sent  by  men.  He  may,  he  ought  to 
speak  as  from  himself,  although  the  doctrine  which  he  teaches 
is  not  his  own.  Observe  these  two  points  in  which  person- 
ality bears  on  what  he  does.  He  is  a  father  and  he  is  a 
brother.  As  a  father,  he  exhorts,  he  entreats,  he  urges  ;  he 
delights  in  sympathy,  he  is  grieved  by  indifference,  he  fears 
on  account  of  his  own  weakness,  he  depends  on  the  power  of 
God,  he  uivokes  his  aid,  he  calls  upon  him  for  it.  As  a 
brother  of  his  hearers,  what  he  says  to  them  he  says  to 
himself;  he  wants  to  make  common  cause  with  them  and  to 
testify  this  to  them,  not  to  appear  as  having  no  part  in  the 
interests  in  which  he  seeks  to  engage  them.  Doubtless  he 
never  seeks  to  turn  upon  himself  an  attention  which  ought  to 


406  FAMILIARITY. 

have  a  different  direction  ;  he  would  censure  this  as  a  disloyal- 
ty ;  but  he  does  not  claim  it  for  his  own  sake,  in  testifying 
his  sympathy  with  the  truths  he  announces  and  the  hearers 
he  addresses ;  and  how  can  he  testify  his  sympathy  without 
speaking  of  himself?  Is  not  every  sympathetic  movement, 
at  the  very  moment,  and  by  the  very  fact  of  its  union  with 
the  personality  of  others,  an  external  exhibition  of  our  per- 
sonality ?  Thus  then,  charity,  humility,  will  control,  but  not 
interdict  the  manifestations  of  personality. 

I  do  not  speak  here  of  that  form  of  oratory,  in  which  the 
preacher  personifies  his  whole  auditory  in  himself,  and  ex- 
presses in  his  own  name  the  sentiments  with  which  he  sup- 
poses them  to  be  penetrated.  This  is  a  figure  of  style,  very 
proper  at  certain  times,  in  which  the  /  and  the  me  do  not  de- 
signate the  orator  personally,*  but  the  flock  considered  as  an 
individual.  No  one  can  mistake  here,  no  one  does  mistake. 
"  There  are  occasions,"  says  Maury,  "  on  which  a  christian 
orator  may  modestly  take  himself  as  the  subject  of  a  moral 
development  in  which  the  multitude  are  interested  :  but  he 
does  not  call  the  attention  of  the  auditory  to  himself,  by  put- 
ting himself  forward ;  on  the  contrary,  he  concentrates  on 
himself  alone  the  weaknesses,  the  mistakes,  the  errors,  the 
inconsistences  of  the  human  mind  or  heart ;  and  in  such  a 
maimer  that  the  more  he  speaks  of  himself,  the  less  is  he 
personal.  Massillon  excels  in  this  humble  method  of  thus 
putting  himself  in  the  place  of  sinners,  while  deploring  his 
own  contradictions,  errors,  distress  and  remorse.  He  excites 
the  most  touching  interest,  he  melts  his  hearers  into  tears 
when  depicting  them  with  the  most  striking  truth,  he  unveils 
the  depth  of  his  conscience,  and  condemns  himself  before  God 
as  ungrateful,  as  miserable,  as  insensate,'''' \ 

*  See  Romans,  vii.,  7-25. 

I  Mauey,  Essai  sur  Veloquence  dc  la  chaire,  Ivi.  De  Vegoisme  dans 
U%  orateurs.    See  two  ways  in  which  Massillon  speaks  of  himself 


NOBLENESS.  407 

There  is  no  preacher,  among  those  who  are  regarded  as 
models,  who  does  not  often  speak  of  himself  in  his  discourses, 
though  this  is  always  done  in  the  design  and  spirit  which  we 
have  ascribed  to  oratorical  familiarity.  Their  me  has  not 
the  same  meaning  with  the  strictly  personal  me  so  veritably 
egotistic  of  a  Demosthenes  and  a  Cicero.  It  is  the  com- 
municative me  of  sympathy  and  humility. 

While  the  style  of  the  pulpit  should  be  simple,  popular, 
familiar,  it  should  still  be  7ioble.  There  is  nothing  more 
noble  than  christian  truth.  Its  nobleness  is  the  first  charac- 
teristic of  it  that  strikes  us.  Style  should  correspond  to  it ; 
it  ought  to  be  noble.  But  in  what  does  nobleness  of  style 
consist  1  In  style  as  in  society,  nobility  imparts  the  idea 
of  distinction  and  even  of  exclusiveness.  There  is  a  class  of 
images  and  words  which  is  regarded  as  noble,  as  there  is  in 
aristocratic  constitutions  a  class  of  men  separated  from  the 
community  of  citizens  by  a  Adsible  and  distinct  barrier. 
Language  also  has  its  ignoble  element,  confounded  in  dic- 
tionaries, though  not  in  discourse,  with  the  aristocratic  ele- 
ment. A  low  term  is  one  which  brings  one's  thought  into  too 
close  contact  with  an  object  which  it  disdains,  that  is, 
judges  unworthy  of  being  occupied  with,  except  from  abso- 
lute necessity.  Man  does  not  willingly  submit  or  wish  to 
have  the  appearance  of  submitting  willingly,  to  what  too  dis- 
tinctly reminds  him  of  what  is  humiliating  in  his  nature  or 
condition.  Nobility  in  manners,  actions  or  language,  springs 
from  a  sense  of  human  dignity,  and  every  one  feels  that  this 
dignity  resides  in  thought  or  in  the  faculty  in  us  which 
thinks.*     Hence  we  are,  in  the  first  place,  led  to  exclude 

in  his  sermon,  Sur  le  jeune,  at  the  end  of  the  exordium  and  at  the 
end  of  the  discourse. 

*  "  All  our  dignity  consists  in  thought,  not  in  space  which  we 
cannot  fill ;  nor  in  duration,  which  is  nothing." — Pascal  Pensees. — Tr. 


408  NOBLENESS. 

certain  ideas,  or  if  we  cannot  wholly  avoid  them,  then  to  ex- 
clude the  words  which  recall  them  too  directly,  and  to  give 
preference  to  terms  which  present  them  obliquely  and  by  a 
retreating  side  to  the  mind  which  recoils  from  them.  It  here 
concerns  us  to  consider  whether,  from  any  cause,  such  or 
such  a  word  impeaches  our  conscious  respect  for  ourselves,  or 
for  such  or  such  an  object  which  we  cannot  despise  without 
despising  ourselves. 

This  impression  we  should  avoid  making  on  our  hearers, 
first  by  the  choice  of  thoughts,  next  by  the  choice  of  words. 
But,  understand  us  well.  We  have  respect  to  legitimate  in- 
vincible disgusts,  not  to  those  which  proceed  from  effeminacy 
of  manners  and  culture  ;  these  last,  if  we  would  be  noble, 
we  must  sometimes  be  able  to  bear,  for  nothing  is  less  noble 
than  the  reciprocal  conventionalities  of  fastidious  politeness. 
We  give  them  their  place,  and  do  not  distrust  them  in  it ;  but 
neither  let  them  undertake  to  impose  their  yoke  on  the  gener- 
ous freedom  of  apostolic  language.  Religion,  which  em- 
braces true  nature,  the  truly  natural  in  itself,  constantly  tends 
to  restore  civilization  to  its  just  conditions,  and  it  approxi- 
mates it  to  nobility  in  the  proportion  in  which  it  removes  it 
from  effeminacy ;  for  if  coarseness  is  ignoble,  effeminacy  is 
scarcely  less  so.  This  spirit  of  Christianity  should  be  that 
of  the  pulpit.  In  the  choice  of  his  terms  the  preacher  should 
have  respect  to  the  state  of  the  society  from  the  bosom  of 
which  his  flock  has  been  drawn  ;  but  in  this  policy  there 
should  be  no  unmanly  complaisance  ;  he  ought  boldly  to  at- 
tempt to  raise  above  itself,  above  its  vain  ideas  of  delicacy, 
this  society  to  which  Christianity  only  can  impart  natural 
beauty. 

According  to  Buflbn,  nobility  of  style  depends  on  "  care 
to  name  things  only  by  the  most  general  terms."*  And  true 
it  is,  that  whatever  extends  the  horizon  of  thought,  whatever 
*  BuFFON,  Discours  sur  le  style. 


NOBLENESS.  409 

detaenes  it  from  its  dependencies,  raises  it  to  its  source  and 
gives  it  space,  is  agreeable  to  the  nature  of  man,  suits  its  dig- 
nity. In  passing  from  the  notion  of  the  individual  to  that  of 
the  species,  from  the  idea  of  the  species  to  that  of  the  genus, 
we  feel  ourselves  to  be  ascending.  We  become  sensible  of 
our  liberty,  our  spirituality  in  this  upward  movement.  But 
if  general  expressions  are  the  most  noble,  they  are  not  the 
most  vivid  or  the  most  touching,  and  eloquence  has  want  of 
breath  in  this  ethereal  region.  General  ideas,  certainly,  must 
cover  particular  ones ;  we  must  see  in  the  particular  ones  the 
presence  of  the  general ;  but  this  does  not  authorize  in  elo- 
quence the  exclusive  use  of  the  most  general  terms.  Nobl© 
ness  of  style  is  not  to  be  so  gained.  The  greatness  of  eastern 
monarchs  consists  in  their  making  themselves  invisible;  there 
is  something  of  this  kind  of  greatness  in  a  style  which,  as  far 
as  possible,  is  rendered  invisible  by  substituting  a  series  of 
formulas  for  the  presence  of  objects,  and  by  making  language, 
which  is  the  painting  of  thought,  a  species  of  algebra. 

Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  The  laws  of  the  sermon 
are  not  those  of  a  poem.  Preaching  would  seem  to  be  for 
our  amusement,  not  our  edification,  if  it  should  be  as  precise 
and  particular  as  poetry  delights  and  has  a  right  to  be. 
Preaching,  doubtless  as  well  as  poetry,  should  endeavor 
to  make  its  objects  present  to  us ;  but  its  objects  are 
diflTerent.  Some  facts  it  details,  others  it  expresses  in  a 
general  manner.  When  it  would  represent  the  urgency  of 
our  projects  and  the  ardor  of  our  enterprises,  under  the  very 
natural  image  of  a  car  or  a  horseman  borne  along  the  course, 
of  what  use  were  it  to  attach  the  reins  nicely  to  the  foaming 
mouth  of  Bucephalus,  or  to  imbrue  in  blood  the  rowels 
of  Alexanders  spurs  1  In  scrutinizing  our  honesty  in  mat- 
ters of  interest,  of  what  use  were  it  to  keep  up  the  technical 
terms  of  wliich  the  peculiar  language  of  the  Exchange  or  the 
Counting-room  is  composed  ?     In  such  cases  it  is  seldom  that 

18 


410  GRAVITY. 

a  general  designation  does  not  suffice.  But  still  we  should 
be  able  to  make  use  of  these  terms,  when  we  have  the  hope 
that  by  emplo^ang  them  we  shall  be  better  and  more  prompt- 
ly understood. 

Periphrasis,  though  not  requisite  to  nobleness  of  style,  is 
a  proper  method  of  avoiding  the  direct  mention  of  things, 
the  true  names  of  which  give  the  impression  of  shame  or 
disgust.  Periphrasis  is  often  indeed  the  definition,  the  true 
name  of  the  object.  It  is  sometimes  a  means  of  diminish- 
ing the  too  interesting  quality  of  an  object.  Again,  it  some- 
times enables  us  to  avoid  the  use  of  a  word. 

It  appears  to  be  almost  superfluous  to  speak  of  the  gravity 
of  the  pulpit  style,  because  what  we  have  said  of  nobleness 
in  this  style  implies  or  supposes  gravity.  In  ascending  to 
the  principle  of  the  one  we  ascend  to  the  principle  of  the 
other,  and  what  stamps  our  discourse  with  the  first  of  these 
characters,  engraves  on  it  necessarily  the  second.  Still,  noble- 
ness and  gravity  are  distinct.  We  have  said  what  the  first 
shuns  and  repels ;  gravity,  which,  according  to  the  etymolo- 
gy of  its  name,  bears  the  weight  of  a  great  thought  or  a 
great  interest,  suflfers  not  itself,  suffers  not  the  mind  of 
the  hearer  to  be  withdrawn  from  that  thought,  by  thoughts 
of  less  importance  or  of  no  importance,  relatively  to  the 
object  of  preaching ;  it  would  interest  us  indeed,  amuse 
us  never,  still  less  permit  anything  to  arise  in  our  mind 
resembling  a  hurtful  or  profane  gayety.  The  most  in- 
nocent smile,  one  which  might  be  admissible  in  the  most 
religious  conversation,  would  not  be  innocent  in  the  temple. 
I  mean  we  should  not  be  innocent  in  provoking  it.  In  the 
most  serious  conversation  there  is  not  what  there  is  here,  a 
consecrated  place,  a  solemn  assembly,  a  worship  of  which 
the  discourse  is  a  part,  and  of  which  it  wears  the  character ; 
the  emotions  are  all  contagious,  they  spread  electrically 
through  the  assembly,  they  become  stronger  and  greater  as 


SCKIPTUEAL  TONE.  411 

they  multiply ;  what  then  will  an  emotion  of  gayety  become, 
and  what  is  a  temple,  what  an  hour  of  worship  in  which  we 
remember  to  have  laughed  ?  I  do  not  suppose  the  preacher 
to  intend  to  produce  either  laughter  or  a  smile.  I  only  ad- 
monish him  to  be  on  his  guard  lest  he  use  terms  which,  in  spite 
of  him,  may  have  this  effect.  We  have  said  that  it  is  not  per- 
mitted to  the  preacher  to  use  the  weapon  of  ridicule. 

In  short,  gravity  requires  that  the  mind  be  not  even  tran- 
siently occupied  with  any  idea  with  which  it  should  not  be 
occupied  in  a  sacred  place,  and  in  the  exercise  of  worship. 

It  remains  to  me  to  speak  of  one  more  congruity  in  the 
style  of  the  pulpit,  a  particular  congruity  which  is,  however, 
the  substance  and  test  of  all  the  others.  I  mean  the  scrip- 
tural tone  of  the  language.  I  would  guard  myself  here, 
against  all  prejudice.  A  discourse,  doubtless,  may  be  chris- 
tian, eminently  christian,  and  not  have  the  quality  I  speak 
of  The  converse,  also,  may  have  place,  that  is  to  say,  a  ser- 
mon strongly  tinctured  with  biblical  expressions  or  allusions 
may  not  be  christian.  It  is  not,  indeed,  proper  to  express 
thoughts  and  feelings  only  in  biblical  formulas,  to  make  sacred 
discourse  wholly  out  of  selections  from  scripture.  We  recall 
here  the  maxim  of  Theremin  :  "  Each  preacher  should  use 
his  own  language;  Christian  thought  should  individualize 
itself  in  him  ;  the  Word  of  God  should  become  his  word ; 
the  truth  becomes  his  own,  only  when  he  is  able  to  give  it  a 
form  which  is  from  himself;  in  short,  a  sermon  composed 
only  of  quotations,  even  the  finest  quotations,  would  not  be 
a  discourse^  it  would  want  oratorical  unity  and  force,  because 
there  would  not  be  perceived  in  it  the  continuous  presence 
and  progressive  action  of  a  soul  in  which  all  the  truths  con- 
tained in  the  discourse  are,  in  a  sense,  personified."  But,  ad- 
mitting all  this,  let  us  still  remember : 

1 .  That  we  have  a  written  religion,  and  that  we  are  not 


412  SCEIPTUEAL   TONE. 

to  forget  this  nor  suffer  it  to  be  forgotten,  and  that  when 
God  himself  has  condescended  to  give  a  form  to  the  truths 
of  salvation,*  it  would  be  strange  and  disloyal  not  to  cite, 
and  cite  abundantly,  expressions  which,  though  they  came 
from  human  lips,  have  a  character  of  authority  which  be- 
longs to  no  other  words.  Their  presence  in  preaching  im- 
parts majesty  to  it,  and  reminds  believers,  as  we  ourselves 
should  be  reminded  in  citing  them,  that  we  are  only  messen- 
gers, ambassadors,  that  we  do  but  accommodate  to  a  certain 
time  and  place,  a  word  which  is  not  our  own,  so  that  he  who 
despises  our  word,  despises  not  man,  but  God  himself. 

Moreover,  the  question  relates  not  only  to  language  and 
coloring,  but  to  facts  and  persons  also. 

All  the  facts  of  the  Bible  ought  to  be  present  with  us,  for 
everything  is  either  proof  or  symbol ;  and  this  history  is  the 
national  history  of  the  Christian  church  ;  here  are  its  begin- 
nings, here  are  its  vouchers.  The  history  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  doubtless  offers  for  citation  other  facts  also,  and 
we  are  to  refuse  nothing  in  this  department ;  but  the  facts  of 
which  the  Bible  is  the  sacred  memorial,  have  doubtless  the 
highest  claim,  and  are  of  the  greatest  authority.  After  all, 
facts,  persons,  form  the  chief  substance  of  the  Bible  and  of 
our  religion  ;  may  we  cite  nothing  besides  doctrines  and  pre- 
cepts ?  It  is  of  great  importance  that  religion  should  retain 
its  historical  and  providential  character.  We  should  be  con- 
stantly reproducing  this  character,  either  directly,  by  usinrj 
its  facts  as  starting-points  or  confirmations  to  our  reasonings 
or  indirectly,  by  multiplied  references  and  allusions.  Abu!' 
dant  opportunities  for  doing  both  will  present  themselves  t  > 
a  preacher  who  is  nourished  by  the  holy  word,  and  posses?* 
some  imagination.  Saurin,  for  the  purpose  of  showing  t 
influence  of  the  trials  of  this  life,  in  leading  us  to  long  f'o     < 

*  Maury  has  in  a  singular  manner  reconciled  the  Bible  and  .1  y 
thology.     {JEssai,  Ixix.     De  I'eiyijyloi  de  VEcriture  sainte.) 


SCEIPTUEAL   TONE.  413 

better,  says  that  "  when  the  dove  found,  out  of  the  ark,  furi- 
ous winds,  overflowing  waters,  the  open  flood-gates  of  heaven, 
the  whole  world  buried  beneath  the  waves,  she  sought  a  refuge 
in  the  ark,  but  when  she  found  valleys  and  fields,  she  stayed 
in  them.  See,  my  soul,  an  image  of  thyself."  .  Elsewhere, 
when  insisting  on  the  necessity  of  uniting  prayer  with  labor 
in  the  work  of  our  salvation,  he  says  :  "  We  ought  to  follow 
the  example  of  Moses  when  in  the  battle  with  the  Amalek- 
ites,  he  divides  with  Joshua  the  work  of  conquest.  Moses 
ascended  the  mountain,  Joshua  goes  down  upon  the  plains ; 
Joshua  fights,  Moses  prays.  Moses  stretches  out  his  hands 
in  supplication  to  heaven,  Joshua  raises  the  arm  of  a  warrior ; 
Moses  opposes  his  zeal  to  the  wrath  of  heaven,  Joshua 
opposes  his  weapons  and  his  courage  to  the  enemy  of  the 
Jewish  people,  and  by  this  wise  union  of  prayer  and  action, 
of  trust  and  vigilance,  Israel  triumphs,  Amalek  is  discom- 
fitted."* 

Having  Him  for  our  master  who  is  the  Word  full  of  grace 
and  truth,  to  whom  the  Spirit  was  given  without  measure, 
who  alone  having  the  truth  in  himself  as  he  has  the  life  in 
himself,  teaches  with  authority,  how  is  it  possible  that  we 
should  not  joyfully  and  fervently  repeat  his  words,  not  as  com- 
mon citations  but  with  reverence,  with  marked  intention  1 

2.  The  Bible  contains  thoughts,  "  which  never  would  have 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man,"  sublime  paradoxes  on  our  na- 
ture, our  condition,  our  future  state,  the  purposes  of  God 
with  respect  to  us,  and,  to  use  an  expression  scarcely  to  be 
dispensed  with,  on  the  character  of  God.  None  of  these 
extraordinary,  unheard-of  thoughts,  could  have  received  a 
more  complete  and  pure  form  than  that  which  they  have  re- 
ceived from  the  Spirit  who  conceived  them.  This  form  is 
sacred,  fundamental ;  the  thought  which  it  invests  can  never 
be  perfectly  separated  from  it ;  we  may  express  it,  develop 
*  Saurin,  tome  i.,  p.  56,  nouvelle  edition. 


414  SCRIPTUEAL  TONE. 

it,  in  our  own  language ;  but  we  can  never  be  justified  in 
omitting  the  very  terms  in  which  it  has  been  expressed  by 
those  who  first  revealed  it  to  us.  We  must  rely  upon  extra- 
ordinary authority  when  we  utter  extraordinary  things.  It 
seems  to  me  that  we  cannot  suitably  treat  of  what  is  most 
ineffable  in  our  religion,  unfold  the  unsearchable  mercy  of 
God,  repeat  his  terrible  threatenings,  without  at  least  start- 
ing with  the  very  words  of  scripture.  Are  we  not  happy  to 
have  forms  already  prepared  for  truths  which  man  would 
hardly  have  dared  to  pronounce,  so  greatly  do  they  tran- 
scend and  overwhelm  him  ?  * 

"  The  imaginations  of  the  thoughts  of  their  hearts  are  only 
evil  continually." — (Genesis,  vi.  5.) 

"  The  heart  is  deceitful  above  all  things  and  desperately 
wicked." — (Jeremiah,  xvii.  9.) 

"  Man  is  without  all  glory  in  the  sight  of  God." — (Ro- 
mans, iii.  22.) 

"  As  he  (the  wicked  man)  clothed  himself  with  cursing 
like  as  with  his  garment,  so  let  it  come  into  his  bowels  like 
water,  and  like  oil  into  his  bones." — (Psalm  cix.  18.) 

"  For  after  that  in  the  wisdom  of  God,  the  world  by  wis- 
dom knew  not  God,  it  pleased  God  by  the  foolishness  of 
preachiijg  to  save  them  that  believe. — (1  Corinthians,  i.  21.) 

"  Can  a  woman  forget  her  sucking  child,  that  she  should 
not  have  compassion  on  the  son  of  her  womb  1  Yea  they 
may  forget,  yet  will  I  not  forget  thee." — (Isaiah,  xlix.  15.) 

"  And  the  Lord  spake  to  Moses  face  to  face,  as  a  man 
speaketh  unto  his  friend." — (Exodus,  xxxiii.  11.) 

"In  all  their  afflictions  he  was  afflicted." — (Isaiah,  Ixii.  9.) 

3.  After  Rollin,  and  especially  after  Fenelon,  after  Maury, 
I  will  not  attempt  to  speak  of  the  eloquence  and  the  poetry 
of  the  Bible.     I  will  only  remark,  that  what  distinguishes  it 

*  "  These  passages  (of  the  Bible)  are  as  a  rich  vein  of  gold  which 
winds  its  way  through  other  metals  of  a  gross  kind." — Richardson. 


SCBIPTURAL   TONE.  415 

and  sets  it  above  all  literary  performances,  is,  that  its  beau- 
ties are  not  literary,  that  the  thought  always  gives  the  form, 
so  that  the  union  of  the  thought  and  form  was  never  so  inti- 
mate. The  beauty  then  of  biblical  language  has  everywhere 
something  substantial,  which  connects  the  mind  immediately 
with  the  essence  of  things,  without  permitting  it  to  take 
pleasure  in  the  exterior  covering.  We  are  impressed  before 
we  have  had  time  to  be  delighted  or  scarcely  to  admire.  It 
is  remarkable  too,  that  oriental  language,  at  first  view  so 
strange  to  western  imaginations,  should  be  at  the  same  time 
so  human,  and  on  this  account  so  universal,  that  it  assimi- 
lates itself  to  all  people,  all  forms  of  civilization,  all  lan- 
guages, much  more  readily,  than  the  languages  and  literature 
of  any  age  or  people,  though  much  less  remote  from  us, 
would  do.  Whatever,  in  the  holy  book,  relates  to  man, 
whatever  portrays  man,  has  a  depth  and  simplicity  to  which 
there  is  no  parallel ;  the  Bible  here  speaks  a  universal  lan- 
guage, displays  a  universal  poetry ;  the  Bible  in  this  respect 
as  in  all  others,  was  intended  as  a  book  for  the  human  race. 
Setting  aside  authoritative  claims  we  can  draw  from  no  other 
source,  images,  descriptions,  more  suitable  to  the  subjects  we 
have  to  treat  in  the  pulpit,  or  adorn  religious  discourse  with 
beauty  more  becoming  or  more  grave. 

All  the  forms  of  beauty  which  are  proper  in  religious  dis- 
course abound  in  holy  scripture,  and  our  position  in  relation 
to  it  gives  us  the  privilege,  imposes  on  us  the  duty  of  appro- 
priating them  all.  We  alone  can  do  this ;  what  everywhere 
else  would  be  plagiarism  or  affectation,  is  one  of  the  highest 
congruities,  is  truth,  in  the  kind  of  discourse  we  have  to  do 
with.  In  discourse  of  other  kinds  who  would  venture,  how- 
ever he  might  desire  to  do  so,  to  intersperse  his  composition 
with  so  many  vivid  allusions,  to  color  it  with  so  many  re- 
flected rays  ?  But  the  Bible  is  more  than  a  source  or  a  doc- 
ument ;  the  Bible  we  may  almost  say  is  our  subject ;  we 


416  SOKIPTUEAL    TONE. 

have  to  speak  from  it,  our  voice  is  as  its  echo ;  it  is  as  a 
forest  which  we  subdue,  as  a  field  which  we  reap  ;  the  labor 
is  less  an  addition  to  our  task,  than  our  task  itself;  boldly 
and  freely  then  may  we  draw  from  this  treasury.  And  what 
a  treasury  !  This  book  has  in  everything  reached  the  sublime. 
The  most  perfect  models  of  the  grand  and  the  pathetic,  of 
the  human  and  the  religious,  of  the  strong  and  the  tender, 
are  here  as  in  their  depository.  Among  all  the  books  which 
have  expressed  ideas  of  the  same  class,  if  we  were  free  to 
choose,  if  the  authority  was  equal,  we  should  always  recur 
to  this.  It  has  given  names  to  all  divine  and  human  things 
which  are  definitive  and  irrevocable.  Its  manner  of  expressing 
things  could  not  without  loss  of  strength  be  exchanged  for 
any  other  manner.  Whole  nations  have  appropriated  this 
language  and  interfused  it  with  their  own ;  the  Bible  has 
given  to  human  speech  a  multitude  of  expressions  as  it  has 
also  given  to  human  thoughts  some  of  the  most  sacred  of  its 
forms.  We  remind  men  of  their  family  traditions  when  we 
repeat  to  them  the  words  of  the  Bible. 

Have  you  a  different  image  from  this  to  give  to  creative 
power  ;  God  said,  "  Let  there  be  light  and  there  was  light"  "? 
(Genesis,  i.  3.) 

To  describe  the  Creator's  authority  over  the  two  worlds 
of  physical  and  moral  being,  is  there  anything  to  be  pre- 
ferred to  this  word  :  "  Who  stilleth  the  noise  of  the  seas,  the 
noise  of  the  waves,  and  the  tumult  of  the  people"  1  (Psalm 
Ixv.  7. 

Can  we  better  attain  to  the  sublime  of  grief,  than  has  been 
done  in  these  words :  "  In  Rama  was  there  a  voice  heard, 
lamentation  and  weeping  and  great  mourning,  Rachel  weep- 
ing for  her  children  and  would  not  be  comforted  because  they 
are  not"?     (Jeremiah,  xxxi.  15.  Matthew,  ii.  18.) 

Can  the  desolation  produced  by  sin,  ever  be  expressed 
with  so  alarming  a  power  as   has  been  exhibited  by  Isaiah, 


SCRIPTUEAL    TONE.  417 

when  he  says,  "  There  shall  be  darkness  in  the  ruins  tnereof "  ? 
(Isaiah,  v.  30,  French  translation.) 

To  present  the  divine  harmony  of  all  the  perfections  of 
Jehovah,  and  the  ineffable  unity  of  his  purposes  towards  us,  can 
you  find  anything  which  approaches  the  mildness  and  gran- 
deur of  this  expression  :  "  Righteousness  and  peace  have 
kissed  each  other"  1     (Psalm  Ixxxv.  10.) 

But  we  might  transcribe  the  whole  Bible.  We  make  a 
concluding  remark.  It  is  this,  that  we  should  be  deprived 
of  a  large  number  of  the  most  original  and  striking  beauties 
that  the  Bible  supplies,  if  we  are  not  to  draw  from  the  Old 
Testament  as  well  as  the  New.  The  Old  Testament,  we 
must  maintain,  is  a  continued  parable,  or  a  rudiment  of  the 
New  ;  and  the  application  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the  ideas 
of  the  New,  from  the  very  consideration  that  it  is  less  direct 
than  an  application  of  evangelical  language,  has  a  peculiar, 
inexhaustible  charm,  which  must  not  be  neglected.  With- 
out allowing  place  for  groundless  allegory,  without  permit- 
ting anything  to  be  forced,  by  natural  accommodation,  the 
entire  Old  Testament  ma}^  be  used  in  the  service  of  christian 
ideas — may  present  them  under  a  surprising  and  touching 
aspect.  After  all  the  happy  and  natural  resemblances  which 
have  been  discovered  and  applied,  an  attentive  study  of  the 
Old  Testament  will  d^-aw  forth  a  multitude  more.* 

Let  us  remark,  however,  that  all  these  beauties  are  discol- 
ored or  lost  in  a  discourse  without  individuality,  in  a  dis- 
course which  has  no  depth,  no  intrinsic  power,  as  flowers 
whose  stem  is  not  rooted  in  the  soil,  hang  their  head,  grow 
pale  and  die. 

4.  After  passing  in  review  all  the  congruities  which  I  think 
should  be  found  in  the  style  of  preaching,  simplicity,  popu- 

*  We  may  cite  here  the  exordium  of  Saurjn^s  sermon,  sur  le  Canr 
tique  de  Simeon,  and  the  peroration  of  that  of  Bossuet,  sur  VImpeni' 
tence  finale.     See  this  latter  passage,  p.  211. 

18* 


418  SCRIPTURAL    TONE. 

larity,  familiarity,  nobleness,  I  think  I  see  them  all  united  in 
the  scriptural  style,  and  that  this,  as  I  said  a  moment 
since,  is  its  compendium  and  its  measure.  The  Bible  I  re- 
gard as  the  true  diapason  of  the  preacher,  who  assuredly 
should  take  from  it  the  general  tone  of  his  discourse ;  his 
ima«i;ination  sliould  be  steeped  in  the  Bible ;  he  should  come 
forth  in  the  spirit  of  this  book,  if  he  would  have  true  power, 
dignified  simplicity,  noble  and  grave  familiarity.  It  is  the 
Bible,  Jet  me  say  with  emphasis,  that  imparts  and  preserves 
to  pulpit  discourse  the  just  measure  of  popularity,  which 
from  the  existing  state  of  civilization  we  are  constantly  lia- 
ble either  to  fall  short  of  or  to  exceed. 

What  1  have  namod popularitij,  I  am  willingto  call  humanity. 
It  is  what  reminds  men  of  the  community  of  their  origin  and 
condition.  It  is  the  living  impress  of  what  equalizes  or  resem- 
bles men  to  one  another.  In  gi'cat  refinement  of  manners, 
in  too  intellectual  habits,  this  equality,  this  resemblance,  is 
too  much  forgotten.  Even  in  an  intermediate  condition, 
life  is  so  artificial,  nature  so  transformed,  that  we  can  no  long- 
er discern  its  original  purity  ;  and  as  to  the  poor,  the  misera- 
ble, it  is  as  a  corrupt  text  which  repels  and  offends  us.  It 
rejoices  me,  I  confess,  to  sec  all  classes  promiscuously  brought 
back  \uidei  a  divine  authority,  to  a  world  in  which  nature  and 
common  life  pass  for  something,  in  which  kings  and  shepherds 
speak  the  sanie  language,  in  whicli  the  most  distinguished 
teachers  are  as  watermen  or  tent-makers,  in  which  tlie  lan- 
guage of  the  poor  becomes  the  language  of  all,  the  poor  feel 
themselves  to  be  divinely  exalted,  and  the  rich  truly  humbled. 
The  Bible  adapts  itself  to  the  middle  point,  the  centre  of  hu- 
man life,  to  its  sincerest  forms ;  it  here  unites  the  two  ex- 
tremes of  society,  those  who  are  below  and  those  who  think 
themselves  above  this  region ;  it  makes  man  sensible  of  his 
simple  hujuanity,  and  l)y  this  means  of  his  true  greatness 


SCEIPTUKAL  TONE.  419 

which  dire  necessity  conceals,  and  effeminate  conventionality 
curtails. 

We  have  said  that  this  is  the  aspect  in  which  humanity  ap- 
pears greatest,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  most  comprehensive 
aspect.  Now,  a  simple  and  naive  form  best  becomes  that 
which  is  truly  great.  While  the  Bible  imparts  Its  greatness 
to  our  discourses,  it  gives  them  its  own  simplicity.  It  places 
us  with  itself  on  an  elevation,  from  which  we  may  say  every- 
thing. By  intermixing  it  with  our  own  speech,  we  embolden 
our  style,  which  is  at  once  ambitious  and  timid ;  it  becomes 
throughout  and  in  just  proportion,  serious  and  free.  The  Bible 
gives  now  a  passport,  now  inspiration  to  ideas  and  traits,  which, 
apart  from  it,  perhaps  we  should  not  have  hazarded ;  on  its 
behalf  and  in  its  terms,  we  say  what  in  our  own  name  we 
should  not  have  ventured  to  say.  What  other  image  could 
better  express  the  principle  of  destruction  which  infidelity  in- 
volves, than  this  of  the  prophet :  "This  iniquity  shall  be  to 
you  as  a  breach  ready  to  fall,  swelling  out  in  a  high  wall, 
whose  breaking  cometh  suddenly  at  an  instant.  And  he  shall 
break  it  as  the  breaking  of  the  potter's  vessel  that  is  broken 
in  pieces ;  he  shall  not  spare,  so  that  there  shall  not  be  found 
in  the  bursting  of  it  a  shred  to  take  fire  from  the  hearth,  or 
to  take  water  withal  out  of  the  pit'"?  (Isaiah,  xxx.  13,  14.) 
This  is  an  image  of  which  we  should  not  have  thought,  or 
which,  if  we  had  found,  we  should  scarcely  have  dared  to 
present ;  but  as  it  is  taken  from  the  Bible,  we  freely  use  it, 
and  it  is  well  received.  One,  in  order  to  represent  the  in- 
sufficiency of  human  wisdom  to  solve  all  the  doubts  and  sat- 
isfy all  the  wants  of  men,  would  hardly  have  employed  on 
his  own  responsibility  if  the  Bible  had  not  used  it  before  him, 
the  following  image :  "  The  bed  is  shorter  than  that  a  man 
can  stretch  himself  on  it,  and  the  covering  narrower  than  that 
he  can  wrap  himself  in  it."     (Isaiah,  xxviii.  20.) 

The  God  whom  the  gospel  reveals,  appears  to  approach  us 


420  SCEIPTUKAL  TONE. 

with  this  word :  "  Homo  sum,  kumani  nihil  a  me  alienumpufo.^^* 
But  it  belongs  to  him  to  speak  thus ;  to  him  who  is  pleased 
to  borrow  from  the  language  of  men,  all  sorts  of  terms  by 
which  he  may  express  the  inexpressible  condescension  of  his 
love.  Let  it  be  then  himself  who  says  in  our  sermons : 
"  As  a  beast  goeth  down  into  the  valley,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
caused  him  to  rest."  (Isaiah,  Ixiii.  14.)  "  Ye  shall  be  borne 
upon  her  sides  and  be  dandled  upon  her  knees."  (Isaiah,  Ixvi. 
12.)  But  the  more  we  cite  scripture,  the  more  shall  we  dare 
■to  speak  as  it  does.  We  shall  end  also,  by  saying:  Homo 
sum  ....  We  shall,  in  truth,  become  so.  Nothing  is  so 
human  as  Christianity.  No  one  is  so  much  a  man  as  a  christian. 
The  eloquence  of  the  pulpit,  when  inspired  by  scripture, 
readily  attains  that  mingled  greatness  and  familiarity,  that 
familiarity  so  full  of  greatness,  which  should  be  and  always 
has  been  the  inimitable  signet  of  preaching. 

We  cannot  give  particular  rules  as  to  the  manner  of  in- 
troducing Biblical  language  into  pulpit  discourse.  The  only 
one  I  would  give,  one  which  is  altogether  genei'al,  is  this : 
Feed  upon  the  Bible,  live  in  the  Bible,  unite  yourself  to  it ; 
let  it  abound  in  your  memory  and  heart ;  let  a  frequent 
personal  study  of  it  reveal  to  you  the  force,  give  you  the 
secret  of  a  multitude  of  passages,  which  without  such  study, 
would  remain  to  you  as  mere  commonplaces,  and  take  no 
root  in  your  memory  ;  mix  the  recollection  of  them  with 
your  most  tender  affections,  with  your  prayers,  your  gravest 
occupations ;  let  the  words  of  scripture  gradually  become  the 
natural  and  involuntary  form  of  your  most  inward  thoughts  ; — 
then  meditate  on  a  subject  for  the  pulpit ;  write ;  preacli ; 
your  word  will  come  filled  with  the  richness,  inter-blended 
with  the  colors  of  the  word  of  inspiration.     The  prophetic 

*  Terence,  Heauton,  act.  i.,  scene  1.  "I  am  a  man,  and  nothing 
human  is  forei";n  from  me." 


SUPEKIOR   QUALITIES   OF   STYLE.  421 

word  will  be  interfused  in  yours ;  it  will  not  be  distinguish- 
able from  it ;  it  will  not  appear  to  be  applied  to  it  from 
without;  it  will  not  impair  the  individuality  of  your  ex- 
pression ;  you  will  never  fall  into  imitation,  and  thus  will  it 
come  to  pass,  as  the  nature  of  the  evangelical  ministry  de- 
mands, that  a  man  will  be  heard  by  men. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SUPERIOR   QUALITIES   OR   VIRTUES   OF   STYLE. 

§  1.  Of  Strength  and  Beauty  of  Style  in  general. 

Although  several  of  the  qualities  we  have  considered, 
may,  by  a  certain  measure  of  elevation,  advance  from  sim- 
ple qualities  to  virtues,  still  we  have  prescribed  negative 
rules  rather  than  positive  precepts  or  means  ;  we  have  re- 
moved the  barriers,  marked  out  the  field  of  eloquence.  All 
these  qualities,  I  admit,  are  comprised  in  the  idea  of  truth ; 
it  is  the  truth,  under  different  points  of  view,  that  we  have 
been  all  the  while  recommending.  Admitting  that  truth  is 
not  all,  what  more  is  there  besides  it?  There  is,  if  you 
please,  the  extraordinary^  "  the  superfluous,  a  thing  very  ne- 
cessary ;"  the  union,  the  reconciliation  of  the  true  with  the 
extraordinary,  is  the  problem  to  be  solved.  In  the  kind  of 
composition  we  are  concerned  with,  the  proper  name  of  ex- 
traordinary is  eloquence,  an  eloquent  style  ;  but  this  word 
teaches  us  nothing  which  we  do  not  already  know.  In  what 
does  this  extraordinary  consist ;  of  what  elements  is  this 
eloquence  of  style  composed  % 

We  may  say  with  propriety,  of  strength  and  beauty^  and 
this  is  indeed  "to  say  something.     There  is  here  some  in- 


422  STRENGTH  AKD  BEAUTY 

struction.  The  truth,  doubtless,  is  not  a  purely  negative 
thing ;  strength  and  beauty  are  not  perhaps  only  truth  at  its 
highest  stage ;  the  word  truth,  however,  ma)'  be  and  often 
is  taken  in  a  restricted  sense,  and  in  this  sense  truth  is  dis- 
tinguished from  beauty  and  strength,  and  remains  this  side 
of  them.  Style,  in  a  word,  cannot  be  eloquent  without  be- 
ing true  ;  but  it  may  be  true  without  being  eloquent. 

Thus  we  may  say,  that  in  collecting  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ter, the  elements  of  which  the  truth  of  style  is  composed,  we 
raised  the  barriers,  within  the  interior  of  which  we  leave  elo- 
quence to  move.  Leave  is  the  word,  because  there  are  not 
rules  and  a  method  for  being  eloquent ;  we  cannot  give  to 
him  who  has  not.  We  may,  however,  give  to  him  who  has  ; 
an  exposition  of  the  resources,  the  means,  and  the  procedures 
of  eloquence  may  be  of  advantage  to  him  who  has  the  talent 
of  eloquence.  It  may  not  be  impossible  to  him  to  reflect  on 
the  causes  of  the  effects  produced  by  the  genius  of  oratory  ; 
this  study  leads  to  the  exercise  of  unconscious  faculties,  and 
while  we  preach  morality  to  the  regenerate  man,  we  may 
preach  art  to  the  man  of  talent,  that  he  may  know  how  to 
use  all  his  strength,  and  also  that  he  may  learn  to  regulate  it. 

Strength  and  beauty,  which  are  essential  attributes  of  re- 
ligious and  moral  truth,  should  exist  in  the  form  in  which  it 
is  clothed.  Now,  strength  in  works  of  art,  is  whatever  ex- 
alts in  us  the  sense  of  life  ;  beauty  is  what,  in  the  manifesta- 
tion of  life,  gives  us  the  sense  of  harmony  and  proportion. 
It  is  with  strength  and  beauty  as  with  other  couples  of  things 
that  aid  while  they  resist  one  another,  and  complete  while 
seeming  to  restrain  each  other.  It  is  with  them  as  with 
righteousness  and  peace,  which  though  distinct  and  often  ap- 
parently opposed,  "meet  together  and  kiss  each'  -father:'.' 
(Psahn  Ixxxv.  11.) 

Strength  and  beauty  have  not,  distinctively  and  exclusively 
of  each  other,  affinities   for   certain  kinds  of  composition. 


OF   STYLE   IN   GENEKAL.  423 

But  there  are  kinds  in  which  we  aim  especially  at  strength, 
and  others  in  which  the  study  of  beauty  -is  most  important. 
There  are  times,  also,  which  appreciate  highly  one  of  these 
excellencies,  and  are  indifferent  to  the  other  ;  a  more  decid- 
ed inclination  towards  strength  or  towards  beauty  distin- 
guishes some  nations  and  some  epochs  from  others.  These 
differences  of  taste  arise  from  profounder  differences.  The 
lowest  depth  of  moral  existence  is  discovered  in  the  diversity 
of  these  tendencies. 

In  respect  to  what  remains  to  be  said,  we  gave  no  indica- 
tion of  our  plan  by  calling  that  which  is  beyond  the  simple 
truth  of  style,  strength  and  beauty  ;  we  only  comprised  un- 
der two  leading  ideas,  what,  in  eloquence,  is  the  complement 
of  the  truth  of  style. 

We  may  be  inclined  to  distinguish  poetry  from  eloquence, 
according  to  the  exclusive  predominance  or  presence  of  these 
two  elements,  strength  and  beauty.  They  should  not  how- 
ever be  so  distinguished ;  for  neither  does  poetry  dispense 
with  strength  nor  eloquence  exclude  beauty.  We  must  look 
elsewhere  for  the  principle  of  discrimination  between  these 
two  kinds  of  composition.  It  is  that  one,  eloquence,  has  facts 
for  its  objects,  the  other  has  ideas ;  eloquence,  I  mean  as  far 
as  it  is  eloquence,  and  poetry  as  far  as  it  is  poetry  ;  for  these 
two  arts  sometimes  touch  and  intermingle  more  or  less. 
Eloquence  seeks  to  produce  changes  in  the  world  of  reality, 
poetry  would  produce  them  only  in  the  ideal  sphere.  Elo- 
quence does  not  ignore  ideas,  poetry  does  not  take  away 
facts,  but  the  former  goes  from  ideas  to  facts,  the  latter  from 
facts  to  ideas,  that  is  to  say,  eloquence  transforms  ideas  into 
facts,  and  poetry  transforms  facts  into  ideas.  Eloquence,  in- 
deed, must  rest  upon  ideas,  (ideas  of  justice,  honesty,  fitness,) 
but  it  uses  them  as  a  lever,  to  act  upon  facts  ;  poetry  also 
must  rest  upon  facts,  upon  reality,  upon  experiences,  but  only 
that  by  means  of  them  it  may  rise  to  ideas  or  to  an  ideal. 


424  STRENGTH  AND  BEAUTY 

Let  us  remark,  however,  that  the  word  ideas  does  not,  in 
both  cases,  mean  the  same  thing ;  in  the  former  it  means 
laws,  the  laws  of  nature,  reason,  conscience ;  in  the  latter, 
ideas  are  only  types  of  existences — types,  however,  more 
pure  and  complete,  than  any  real  or  concrete  existence,  sepa- 
rately taken,  or  all  such  existences  collectively,  can  present. 
Eloquence,  then,  leads  us  to  action,  poetry  to  contemplation. 
Eloquence  is  a  combat,  poetry  a  representation  or  a  vision. 
Eloquence  speaks  of  what  is,  poetry  creates  that  which  ought 
to  be.  Eloquence  -flows  in  the  same  channel  with  life,  poetry 
digs  a  channel  for  itself  by  the  side  of  life.  Eloquence,  so 
to  speak,  raises  itself  with  the  wave  of  life  which  it  enlarges 
and  bears  along ;  poetry  suspends  it.  Let  it  be  understood, 
that  1  do  not  here  speak  of  inward  or  contemplative  life,  but 
of  external  or  practical  life.  They  are  two  rivers  which  are 
not  always  separated  ;  they  may  unite  and  flow  together 
from  and  to  a  great  distance ;  poetry  may  become  eloquent, 
eloquence  may  become  poetical ;  but  eloquence  and  poetry 
are  not  less  distinct  in  their  principle  than  in  their  end  and 
consequently  in  their  means ;  and  so  true  is  this,  that  if  elo- 
quence, which  is  an  action,  passes  from  action  to  contempla- 
tion, it  ceases  to  be  eloquence  ;  and  that  if  poetry  omits  con- 
templation in  order  to  act,  it  ceases  to  be  poetry.* 

The  rule  for  each  is  not  to  deny  but  to  remain  faithful  to 
its  principle,  and  constantly  maintain  it,  and  to  avail  itself 
of  the  aid  of  the  other,  without  allowing  itself  to  be  absorbed 
by  it.  We  are  not  here  giving  advice  to  poets ;  our  business 
is  with  orators.     What  shall  we  say  to  them  ? 

Everything  with  you  should  be  subordinate  to  action,  every- 
thing, even  to  the  minutest  details  of  style ;  all  with  you  should 
be  activity,  what  is  not  is  lost ;  all  your  words  should  be  winged 

*  See  reflections  on  the  difference  between  poetry  and  eloquence 
in  the  earlier  JMleanges  de  philosophie  et  de  litterature  c?'Ancillon,  tome 
i.  p.  269. 


OF   STYLE   IN   GENERAL.  425 

and  armed.  And  if  you  do  not  yet  comprehend  us,  if  you 
say  that  in  poetry  also  everything  tends  to  an  end,  everything 
advances  toward  a  goal,  and  that  on  this  account,  poetry  is 
also  an  action,  we  complete  our  explanation  by  adding,  that 
poetry  is  an  internal  action,  a  contemplative  ideal  action, 
while  eloquence  is  a  real  action  of  man  on  man,  of  will  on 
will,  and  through  will  on  the  world.  This  is  the  action 
which  the  orator  proposes  to  himself,  it  is  this  as  his  end 
which  makes  him  an  orator,  and  of  which  he  is  not  to  "lose 
sight  for  a  moment. 

Must  we  hence  infer  that  poetry  is  to  remain  foreign  to 
the  style  of  the  orator  ?  We  must  infer  only  that  poetry 
with  him  is  a  means  not  an  end  ;  for,  how  otherwise  will  he 
dispense  with  it  ?  How  distinguish  from  poetry,  the  talent 
or  art  which  gives  the  objects  of  discourse  presence,  presence 
both  to  himself  and  his  auditory,  which  gives  ideas  a  body, 
which  transforms  definitions  into  pictures,  which  invents, 
which  creates,  which  paints  ?  Imagination  and  poetry  are  the 
same  thing ;  and  if  in  the  economy  and  combination  of  our 
faculties,  reason  and  sentiment  do  not  dispense  with  imagina- 
tion, how  shall  eloquence  dispense  with  it,  which  is  at  one  and 
the  same  time  reason  and  imagination '?  But  a  river  need 
not  retard  its  course,  in  order  to  reflect  the  rays  of  the  sun  or 
to  receive  tints  from  the  color  of  its  shores,  and  eloquence 
need  not  be  suspended  or  annulled  in  order  to  discover  the 
poetry  with  which  it  is  penetrated,  and  which  flows  with  it. 
In  short,  we  must  admit  the  claim  of  beauty  as  well  as  strength, 
the  claim  of  poetry  as  an  oratorical  element.  Style  must  be 
left  to  appropriate  whatever  is  suitable  to  it ;  only  one  charac- 
ter should  everywhere  prevail,  should  accentuate  everything, 
should  form  the  general  tone.  That  character  is  activity,  the 
active  style. 

This  principle  of  activity  which  we  have  already  laid  down  in 
the  chapter  on  oratorical  disposition,  we  are  constrained  to  lay 


426  STiiE::cTa:  and  beauty 

down  anew  in  speaking  of  the  superior  qualities  or  virtues 
of  the  oratorical  style.  We  need  not  remind  you  that  we 
were  treating  of  qualities  which  do  not  endanger  this  princi- 
ple ;  neither  purity  nor  correctness,  neither  perspicuity  nor 
precision,  neither  naturalness  nor  congruity,  even  distantly 
opposes  the  principle  of  activity  ;  none  of  these  qualities  in- 
terfere with  action  ;  not  one  of  them  requires  its  suppression 
or  suspension.  It  is  not  the  same  with  ulterior  or  supe- 
rior qualities,  as  we  may  call  them  ;  for  though  they  have 
nothing  to  lose  t)ut  much  to  gain  from  the  observance  of 
this  principle  of  activity,  they  are  liable  to  isolate  themselves 
and  to  arrogate  to  themselves  an  independent  existence ; 
style  may  seek  strength  and  beauty,  apart  from  this  princi- 
ple ;  and  we  ourselves,  when  we  undertake  to  indicate  the 
elements  of  which  strength  and  beauty  of  style  are  com- 
posed, would  be  implicated  in  this  same  error,  if  we  did  not 
first  take  care  to  lay  down  certain  general  principles  which 
should  direct  and  control  the  writer  in  this  part  of  his  labor. 
The  first  of  these  principles,  is  that  nothing,  in  eloquence, 
can  be  given  to  the  mere  desire  of  pleasing ;  that  eloquence 
admits  of  only  useful  beauties,  and  that  nothing  in  it  is  mere 
ornament.  And  we  use  the  term  useful  here  with  no  vague- 
ness of  meaning.  Utility  with  the  orator  lies  in  proving,  con- 
vincing, determining.  Eloquence,  in  this  view,  has  its  type 
in  nature,  where  everything  beautiful  is  useful  or  springs  from 
what  is  useful.  Nature  so  admirably  combines  the  usefial 
and  the  beautiful,  that  according  to  the  aspect  in  which  we 
regard  it,  it  appears  alternately  to  have  intended  only  the 
beautiful,  and  to  have  had  no  thought  except  of  the  useful. 
Nature  hastens  to  its  result,  but  when  we  consider  the  beauties 
it  develops  in  its  course  towards  its  end,  can  we  say  that  it 
ever  declines  being  at  leisure  1  Under  another  view  nature 
is  like  a  harp  with  a  thousand  vibrating  cords,  or  an  immense 
mirror  of  ideas ;  but  all  is  activity,  all  is  life,  all  is  produo- 


OF   STYLE   LN-   GENERAL.  427 

tion  in  the  sounds  of  this  harp,  and  in  the  images  of  this 
mirror ;  nature  is  not  only  a  poet,  (under  this  title  even,  we 
are  permitted  to  recognize  in  its  works  an  end,  a  severe  uni- 
ty,) nature  is  an  orator  ;  it  acts,  it  produces,  it  argues ;  what- 
ever it  does  is  beautiful,  but  whatever  it  does  is  useful,  that  is  to 
say,  suited  to  prudence,  apart  from  itself,  the  sense  of  happiness. 
We  borrow  from  Cicero  this  comparison  between  the 
works  of  eloquence  and  those  of  nature :  "  In  speaking,  the 
same  thing  happens  which  may  be  discovered  in  most  of  the 
other  surprising  operations  of  nature,  that  the  subjects  which 
are  of  the  greatest  utility  contain  the  greatest  dignity  and 
often  the  greatest  beauty.  We  see  that  the  economy  of  the 
universe  and  of  nature  is  accommodated  to  the  general  safety 
and  happiness.  The  concavity  of  the  heavens,  the  centrical 
position  of  the  self-balanced  earth,  the  rotation  of  the  sun 
through  all  the  gradations  and  revolutions  of  the  seasons,  the 
access  and  recess  of  the  moon,  by  which  the  radiance  she  de- 
rives from  the  sun  is  regulated ;  and  the  unequal  revolutions 
of  the  five  other  planets,  are  all  so  many  convincing  proofs 
of  this  truth.  So  unvarying  are  the  proportions  which  effect 
all  these  causes,  that  the  least  alteration  would  dissolve  the 
whole  system,  and  so  beautiful  is  their  economy,  that  fancy 
can  form  nothing  so  fair. — Let  us  now  reflect  upon  the  form 
and  figure  of  man,  and  even  of  the  other  animals ;  there  you 
find  that  every  member  has  its  proper  use,  and  that  the  finish- 
ing of  the  whole  speaks  not  a  blind  chance  but  a  providential 
wisdom. — How  wonderful  is  the  vegetable  creation,  where 
there  is  not  a  ^talk,  a  bough  nor  even  a  leaf  which  does  not 
operate  in  preserving  and  propagating  its  own  nature,  yet  all 
is  beauty. — Let  us  pass  from  nature  to  the  arts.  The  same 
observation  holds  good  with  regard  to  eloquence ;  for  there  wit 
and  humor  almost  attends  utility,  and  I  may  say  necessity.* 

*  Cicero,  De  Oratore^  lib.  iii.,  cap.xlv  xlvi.    (Translation:  London, 
1808.) 


428  STKENGTH  AND  BEAUTY 

Cicero  gives  number  as  an  illustration,  which  is  intended  to 
spare  the  speaker  fatigue. 

Now,  eloquence,  like  all  the  arts,  is  a  product,  a  develop- 
ment of  nature.  It  ought  to  present  the  same  phenomena  as 
nature.  Cultivated  according  to  nature,  it  is  impossible  that 
it  should  not  produce  the  beautiful  when  it  produces  the  use- 
ful ;  but  as  in  morality,  the  useful  is  produced  from  the 
honest,  and  not  the  honest  from  the  useful,  so  that  we  cannot 
reach  the  useful  except  through  the  honest ;  so  in  art,  the 
beautiful,  the  truly  beautiful,  can  spring  only  from  the  useful. 
The  useful  here  holds  the  first  place ;  but  the  useful  in  this 
sphere  is  conviction,  is  precisely  the  determination  of  the  will, 
and  the  useful,  according  to  the  laws  of  morality,  is  con- 
founded with  the  true,  the  just  and  the  good.  It  is  then  from 
the  essence  of  our  subject  that  we  are  to  draw  our  orna- 
ments, here  are  the  only  true  ornaments,  and  consequently, 
the  only  truly  beautiful  ones ;  nothing  is  absolutely  beautiful 
in  itself,  but  only  in  the  place  which  it  occupies ;  it  would  be 
then  an  unhappy  calculation  which  should  lead  us  to  look  for 
ornaments  apart  from  our  subject,  that  is  to  say,  apart  from 
our  end.  Our  subject  is  to  supply  them  to  us ;  no  necessity 
is  to  lead  us  away  after  others. 

"  The  choicest  expressions,"  says  Quintilian,  "  are  for  the 
most  part,  (I  would  say  always,)  adherent  to  things,  and  are 
seen  in  their  own  light ;  but  we  search  after  them  as  if  always 
hiding  and  stealing  themselves  away  from  us.  Thus  we  never 
think  that  what  ought  to  be  said  is,  as  it  were,  at  hand  ;  we 
fetch  it  from  afar,  and  force  our  invention.  ^Eloquence  re- 
quires a  more  manly  temper,  and  if  its  whole  body  be  sound 
and  vigorous,  it  is  quite  regardless  of  the  nicety  of  paring 
the  nails  and  adjusting  the  hair."* 

To  this  first  rule  we  add  a  second,  or  rather  deduce  a  second 
from  it,  which  is  that  the  whole  is  never  to  be  sacrificed  to 
*  Quintilian,  lib.  viii.,  proem.  [Patsall's  Translation.] 


OF  STYLE   IN  GENEEAL.  429 

detail.  This  is  less  a  new  rule  than  another  form  of  the  pre- 
ceding one.  Subordinating  the  beautiful  to  the  useful,  is 
subordinating  detail  to  the  whole,  since  the  useful  in  orator- 
ical discourse,  is  not  renewed  from  space  to  space,  being  one 
and  the  same  throughout  the  discourse.  There  may  be  agree- 
ableness  of  diction  without  this  subordination,  but  not  true 
beauty  of  style ;  I  would  rather  say  no  style  in  reality.  As 
a  useless  beauty  is  no  beauty,  since  the  beautiful  in  all  dis- 
course is  inseparable  from  the  useful,  a  beauty  of  detail  which 
is  not  related  or  subordinated  to  the  whole,  is  not  a  beauty ; 
the  idea  of  the  useful  and  of  the  whole  being  equally  insepa- 
rable from  oratorical  discourse.  Periods,  sentences,  can  be 
constructed  apart  and  for  themselves,  but  the  ingenuity  be- 
stowed on  them  is  the  effect  of  a  mistaken  diligence,  since  it 
injures  continuity,  proportion  and  the  total  effect.  If  the  ora- 
tor is  not  constantly  occupied  with  his  end,  if  at  every  mo- 
ment, so  to  speak,  his  whole  subject  is  not  present  to  him,  if 
each  passage  is  not  really  Si  passage ^^  a  step  towards  the  end, 
his  discourses  will  be  composed  of  inlaid  work,  that  is 
to  say,  of  pieces  which  are  not  related ;  and  the  detail  will 
suffer  no  less  than  the  whole,  since  the  idea  of  the  beautiful 
cannot  be  separated  from  that  of  congruity  and  relation.  In 
this  respect,  writers  may  be  divided  into  three  classes  :  some 
write  well  a  discourse,  others  a  paragraph,  others  a  sentence. 
The  first  are  not  the  most  numerous. 

"Many  are  seen,"  says  Quintilian,  "  to  stick  at  single 
words,  even  whilst  they  invent,  and  reflect  on  and  measure 
what  they  invent.  If  this  were  done  designedly,  to  use  al- 
ways the  best,  yet  would  this  unhappy  temper  be  detestable, 
as  it  must  check  the  course  of  speaking,  and  extinguish  the 
heat  of  thought  by  delay  and  diffidence.  For  the  orator  is 
wretched,  and  I  may  say  poor,  who  cannot  patiently  lose  a 

*  Act  of  passing,  the  first  sense  given  to  the  word  by  the  Acade- 
my.— [Editors.] 


430  STRENGTH  AND  BEAUTT 

word.  But  he  will  lose  none,  who  first  has  studied  a  good 
manner  of  speaking,  and  by  reading  well  the  best  authors, 
has  fiirnished  himself  with  a  copious  supply  of  words,  and 
made  himself  expert  in  the  art  of  placing  them.  Much 
practice  will  afterwards  so  improve  him,  that  he  will  always 
have  them  at  hand  and  present  to  him,  things  naturally  oc- 
curring, with  the  proper  way  of  expressing  them.* 

Quintilian  has  shown  us  the  danger  :  it  is  the  desire  to  lose 
nothing  ;  it  is  a  mistaken  avidity  which  loses  all  from  a  wish 
to  gain  all ;  it  is  the  love  of  effect,  a  love  which  has  always 
distinguished  writers  of  no  genius,  or  epochs  of  decline,  but 
often,  likewise,  at  all  epochs,  true  talents  in  the  age  of  inex- 
perience. Did  it  never  happen  to  a  young  man,  to  under- 
take a  discourse  that  he  might  have  occasion  for  setting  forth 
a  picture  or  a  happy  movement ;  did  it  never  happen  to  him 
to  make  out  of  a  vast  subject,  the  case  or  frame  of  a  word  ? 
Mortifying  error ;  but  one  which  should  be  pondered  if  we 
would  be  aware  of  all  the  danger  and  insignificance  of  such  a 
way  of  writing ;  miser  et  pauper,  says  Quintilian.  "  It 
is,"  says  Bufibn,  "  from  the  fear  of  losing  isolated,  fugitive 
thoughts ;  it  is  from  the  desire  of  introducing  everywhere 
striking  traits,  that  there  are  so  many  compositions  formed 
of  inlaid  work,  and  so  few  that  are  founded  at  a  single  cast. 
Nothing  is  more  opposed  to  warmth  of  style. "f 

I  would  not  exclude  striking  traits ;  they  are  useful ;  J  but 
to  a  man  of  talent  they  come  of  themselves  in  the  natural 
series  of  the  ideas  of  a  well-ordered  discourse.     Never,  per- 

*  Quintilian,  lib.  viii.,  proem.  [Patsall's  Translation.] 

f  Buffo V,  Discours  sur  le  style. 

X  "  Leave  not  everything  to  your  heirs ;  know  how  to  be  your- 
selves heirs." — (Bossuet.)  "The  fool  in  his  presence  shut  his  im- 
pious lips,  and  retaining,  under  a  forced  silence,  his  vain  and  sacrile- 
gious thoughts,  was  content  to  say  in  his  heart — *  There  is  no  God.' " 
— (Fleohier. 


OF   STYLE   IN   GENERAL.  431 

haps,  are  they  so  striking,  so  happy,  as  when  they  have  not 
been  sought,  and  when  a  kind  of  logical  necessity  has  led  to 
them.  By  whom  are  they  so  abundantly  obtained  as  by 
writers  who  never  sacrificed  the  whole  to  one  of  the  impulses 
of  composition  ?  "  For  my  part,  I  look  upon  the  luminaries 
of  an  oration,  as  so  many  eyes  planted  in  eloquence.  But  I 
would  not  have  eyes  disseminated  all  over  the  body,  lest  they 
might  obstruct  other  members  in  performing  their  respective 
functions."* 

We  think  that  the  qualities  of  an  eloquent  style  may  be 
reduced  to  two  general  ones — color  and  movement.  The  first 
element  in  the  eloquence  of  style  is  that  by  which  objects, 
of  whatever  kind  they  may  be,  are  represented  so  as  to  take 
the  place  of  the  immediate  view  of  them,  or,  perhaps,  give 
us  a  more  vivid  intuition  of  them  than  we  should  obtain 
from  the  objects  themselves.  For  want  of  another  wordf 
I  call  it  color;  but  the  talent  subdivides  itself,  and  its 
effect  is  not  fully  expressed  by  the  word  color.  One 
writer  partakes  more  of  the  painter,  another,  of  the  sculptor ; 
the  style  of  one  is  as  a  warmly-colored  picture,  that  of 
the  other,  as  a  deeply-cut  bas-relief.  Both  by  speech  have 
happily  presented  the  objects  they  would  make  known,  but 
one  attempts  to  give  the  very  idea  of  the  object  prominence, 
the  other  to  indicate  it  by  its  effects  or  circumstances.  Ex- 
amples : 

"  He  who  is  most  like  the  dead,  dies  with  most  regret." 

"  Death  plunders  all  without  shame." 

"  The  people  ought  to  be  the  favorite  of  a  king." 

"  He  who  hath  pity  on  the  poor  lendeth  to  the  Lord."J 

"  True  eloquence  is  the  contempt  of  eloquence."§ 

*  QuiNTiLiAN,  lib.  viii.,  chap.  v.  [Patsall's  Translation.] 

f  The  German  has  the  word  Anschaulichkeit. 

X  Proverbs,  xix.,  17. 

§  Pascal,  Pensees,  part  i.,  art.  x.  §  xxxiv. 


432  STKENGTH   AND   BEAUTY 

"  Without  envy,  without  disguise,  without  ostentation,  al^ 
ways  great  in  action,  and  in  repose,  he  appeared  at  Chantilly 
as  at  the  head  of  his  troops.  Whether  he  adorned  that 
magnificent  and  delightful  palace,  or  supplied  a  camp  in  the 
midst  of  an  enemy's  country,  and  fortified  a  place ;  whether 
he  marched  with  an  army  amidst  perils,  or  conducted  his 
friends  through  these  superb  walks,  amid  the  murmurs  of 
fountains  which  were  silent  neither  day  nor  night,  he  was  al- 
ways the  same   man  ;  everywhere  his  glory  followed  him."* 

La  Bruyere,  an  admirable  sculptor  of  thoughts,  gives  us 
examples  of  a  diflferent  kind  : 

"  False  greatness  is  severe  and  unsociable  ;  conscious  of 
weakness,  it  conceals  itself,  or  at  least  does  not  show  itself 
openly,  and  displays  itself  so  far  as  is  necessary  in  order  to 
be  imposing."! 

"  A  great  soul  is  superior  to  injury,  injustice,  sorrow,  and 
reproach,  and  if  it  did  not  suffer  through  compassion,  would 
be  invulnerable."! 

"  Every  one  says  of  a  fop  that  he  is  a  fop,  no  one  dares  to 
tell  him  that  he  is  one ;  he  dies  without  knowing  it,  and  with- 
out any  one  being  avenged.^^^ 

A  second  law  requires  the  proper  arrangement  of  the  ideas 
among  themselves,  such  a  regulation  of  the  movement  of  the 
discourse  as  will  give  the  hearer  a  sense  of  activity,  of  progress, 
of  a  series  of  distinct  phases  in  the  drama  in  which  he  has  part, 
as  will  not  leave  him  long  in  the  same  situation,  and  will 
transport  him  into  another  in  a  spirited  manner,  as  will  give 
him,  in  a  word,  a  deep  and  continued  consciousness  of  his  life, 
here  is  a  second  law,  in  truth,  the  general  and  highest  law  of 
oratorical  discourse,  but  as  it  is  in  the  style  that  it  is  realized, 

*  BossuKT,   Oraison  funehre  du  prince  de  Conde. 
f  La  Bruykrr,  Les  Caractere.%  cliap.  ii. 
:j:  La  Bruykrk,  Les  Caracteres,  chap.  xi. 
§  Ibid. 


COLOR.  433 

it  is  here  that  it  should  be  studied.  These  two  laws,  though 
distinct,  never  admit  of  being  fulfilled,  the  one  by  the  other ; 
images  may  aid  movement ;  movement  in  its  turn  may  be- 
C(jme  a  painting ;  the  orator  may,  should  indeed,  endeavor 
to  obtain  one  of  these  effects  by  means  of  the  other  ;  but  the 
two  effects  are  not  on  that  account  the  less  distinct  from  one 
another,  and  require  to  be  contemplated  separately. 

Let  us  first  inquire  for  the  chief  means  of  painting  thought, 
of  giving  character  and  relief  to  objects,  and  color  to  style. 

§  2.   0/  Color.  — |w^ 

All  discourse,  that  of  books,  of  conversation,  aims  to 
substitute  for  immediate  experience,  something  which  takes 
the  place  and -reproduces  the  impression  of  it.  Speech  ought 
to  be  something  more  than  the  formula  of  things.  We  must 
have  an  image  in  order  to  have  knowledge ;  an  image  is 
sometimes  as  impressive  as  realit}^  Nothing  short  of  this 
will  suffice  in  the  pulpit ;  thought  must  be  painted.  I  mean, 
that  the  expression  should  f)roduce  an  image,  that  is  to  say, 
should  not  only  impart  to  us  an  idea,  but,  in  some  sort,  a 
view — a  vivid  intuition,  of  the  physical  or  moral  things 
which  are  spoken  of ;  should  clothe  ideas  in  a  form  in  which 
they  will  be  vividly  and  distinctly  presented  to  our  imagina- 
tion. In  this  process,  we  may  contemplate  the  act  itself,  the 
nature  of  the  idea  on  which  it  is  exerted,  its  immediate 
object  or  its  mode,  and  the  means  which  it  uses.  Let  us 
take  : 

I.  The  act  itself.  Each  of  the  objects  comprised  in  the 
subject  of  the  discourse  must  have  its  character  and  its 
value.  What  is  painting  the  thought,  but  adding  to  per- 
spicuity a  vivacity  which  ordinarily  it  has  not,  a  force 
which  it  knows  not  1  It  is  not,  of  course,  painting  for  its 
own  sake  ;  it  is  a  means  and  not  an  end.  This  draws  the 
limit,  excludes  extension   and   minuteness.     The   object  in 

19 


434  COLOR. 

general  is  to  paint  and  not  to  write  ;  to  insinuate  everything, 
not  to  show  everything.  All  is  to  be  subordinated  to 
instruction  and  emotion.  Splendid  imagery  in  pulpit  dis- 
course, is  scarcely  more  unacceptable,  to  me,  than  gold  on 
the  priests  garments,  or  luxurious  display  in  the  sanctuary. 
Still  we  must  give  vivacity  to  objects.  Figures  slightly 
bold  are  not  adequate  ;  style  slightly  colored,  is  seldom 
proper  for  the  temple.  I  would  have  no  one  force  his  nature ; 
for  here  also,  "  Whatsoever  is  not  of  faith  is  sin."  (Ro- 
mans, xiv.  23.) 

II.  The  nature  of  the  objects  to  be  represented.  These 
are  now  material,  now  immaterial  objects  :  now  persons,  now 
situations  or  scenes ;  sometimes  individual,  sometimes  collec- 
tive facts. 

III.  The  immediate  object  or  mode  of  representation. 
This  is  sometimes  the  character,  the  idea  of  the  object,  some- 
times its  external  symptoms  which  the  image  makes  promi- 
nent. One  of  these  procedures  more  resembles  sculpture, 
the  other  painting.  In  their  perfection,  they  are  equally  val- 
uable. Bossuet  excels  in  both.*  Often  a  word  gives  a  char- 
acter. "  The  lightning  cleaves  the  clouds,  the  night  returns," 
but  we  have  seen,  that  is  enough.  The  idea  may  then  be 
seized,  whether  from  some  particular  characteristic  circum- 
stance, or  from  a  variety  of  details.  Painting  doubtless, 
ought  to  be  oftener  employed,  because  it  is  more  generally 
appreciated.  But  the  other  method,  which  consists  in  bring- 
ing the  object  itself  to  view,  has  great  force  when  properly 
employed.     It  is  common  with  La  Bruyere. 

IV.  The  means  which  are  used.  They  are  direct  when  they 
are  taken  from  the  object  itself  which  is  to  be  presented  ;  in- 
direct, when  we  have  recourse  to  comparisons. 

A.  Direct  means  consist  in  announcing  the  characteristics 

*  "Fountains  which  cease  not  their  murmurs  day  or  night."  Boa- 
BUET,  Oraisonfunehre  du  prince  de  Conde. 


COLOR.  435 

of  the  object.  This  procedure  in  its  most  ample  form  is  de- 
scription^ that  is  to  say,  such  an  indication  of  circumstances 
as  renders  an  idea  present  to  the  imagination,  or  as  visible, 
as  present  as  possible  in  the  absence  of  the  object.*  I  have 
said  indiodLtion,  not  enumeration,  because  though  a  complete 
enumeration  may  sometimes  be  useful,  perhaps  in  certain 
cases  even  redundance,  or  at  least  accumulation,  a  well- 
chosen  circumstance  may  often  answer  our  purpose.  Not 
the  number  but  the  choice  of  details,  is  chiefly  to  be  regard- 
ed. There  are  frequent  circumstances  which  are  of  as  much 
avail  as  a  complete  and  methodical  analysis  of  a  character  or 
situation.  The  point  is  to  be  sought  in  which  the  rays  con- 
verge and  light  becomes  flame. f 

Great  writers  require  but  little  space  for  a  complete  pic- 
ture. They  are  able  to  condense  the  elements  of  a  thought 
or  an  image,  to  suppress  intervening  ideas,  to  substitute  com- 
bination for  juxtaposition  of  parts  ;  thus  Bossuet :  "  This 
word  of  confidence  bore  her  holy  soul  to  the  abodes  of  the 
just. "J  And  elsewhere  :  "  He  expired  while-  writing  these 
words,  and  prolonged  the  sacred  song  with  the  angels."§ 

In  the  most  concise  recitals  of  the  Bible,  the  characteristic, 
comprehensive  word  is  never  wanting.  || 

*  Antique  genius,  from  which  ours  diflfers  too  much.  Contingent 
circumstaaices  added  to  the  principal  fact ;  always  descending  from 
the  genus  to  the  species. 

f  "Pontum  adspectabant  flentes."    Virgil,  uEneid,  v.  616. 

Son  coursierbondissant,  qui  sent  flotter  la  rene, 
Lance  un  regard  oblique  a  son  maitre  expirant 
Revient,  penche  la  tete,  et  le  flaire  en  pleurant. 
His  bounding  courser  feels  the  reins  relaxed, 
Darts  a  glance  side-ways  at  his  dying  master, 
Returns,  inclines  his  head,  and  weeping  scents  him. 
\  BossTJET,  Oraison  funebre  de  la princesse  palatine. 
§  BossTJET,  Oraison  funebre  de  Le  Tellier. 
II  See  the  exposition  of  the  Cantique  sur  Pharaon,  by  M.  Hersan, 


^S6  COLOR. 

Massillon  excels  in  the  art  of  fusing  images  in  the  texture 
of  the  style,  though  his  images  are  sometimes  bold,  as  in 
this  example  :  "  Your  actions  put  your  titles  to  the  blush." 
Yet  his  images  appear  only  as  far  as  is  necessary,  their  way 
having  been  prepared,  and  being  legitimated  by  wha^  preceded 
them. 

Often,  moreover,  the  best  painting  is  done  not  by  happy 
combinations  and  words,  but  by  a  simple  and  naive  express- 
ion, which  aims  not  at  painting  but  only  at  a  mere  designa- 
tion of  the  idea.  Thus  we  read  in  the  Bible  :  "  Let  there 
be  light  and  there  was  light," — (Genesis,  i.  3 ;)  and  else- 
where :  "  Rachel  weeping  for  her  children  refused  to  be  com- 
forted because  they  were  not." — (Mathew,  ii.  18.)  But  often 
also  more  pains  are  necessary. 

Epithet  is  often  a  powerful  and  formidable  means,  and  to 
this  an  image  is  frequently  reduced.  An  epithet  is  a  word 
added  to  the  name  of  the  object  or  action,  to  distinguish  a 
characteristic  of  that  action  or  object.  Every  epithet  is  an 
adjective  or  an  adverb  ;  every  adjective  is  not  an  epithet. 
An  adjective  or  adverb  without  which  the  noun  would  re- 
main incomplete  or  be  suspended,  is  not  an  epithet ;  but  it 
is  an  unmeaning  epithet  which  does  not  give  a  more  com- 
plete or  more  vivid  sense  of  the  object. 

In  all  languages  the  middling  class  of  writers  make  a  great 
abuse  of  epithets  ;  it  is  the  resort  of  indolent  minds,  the  in- 
adequate supplement  of  imperfect  meditation,  and  the  cause 
of  that  effeminacy  of  style  which  we  remark  in  many  writer:;. 
An  epithet  is  unmeaning  if  it  does  not  condense  a  judgment , 
if  it  does  not  abridge  a  picture.  It  ought  not  to  be  the  rule, 
but  the  exception.  An  epithet  is  always  an  injury  if  it  1>  j 
not  an  excellence,  and  useful  epithets  are  of  less  advantp-;.-3 

in  le  Traite  des  etudes  de  Rollin,  lib.  v.,  ch.  iii.,  §ix:   "  Interjiciet  eo8 
manus  mea,"  ior  '' Interjiciam  eos."  See,  also,  Genesis,  xliii.,  26-31. 


COLOR.  437 

than  hurtful  ones  are  hurtful.     See  the  imitation  of  Psalm 
xix.,  by  J.  B.  Rousseau : 

Quel  plus  sublime  cantique,  etc. 

Who  does  not  feel  wearied  in  the  first  strophe  with  epi- 
thets which  are  not  needed  because  they  are  comprised  in 
the  substantive  ?  We  may  here  recur  again  to  the  principle 
of  activity  ;  the  mind  must  be  left  to  do  something  of  itself; 
nor  will  it  thank  you  for  what  it  might  have  found  or  what  it 
really  has  found  without  your  aid. 

We  must  distinguish  the  cases  in  which  the  substantive 
carries  with  it  the  entire  train  of  accessory  ideas,  or  in  which 
every  accessory  idea  will  be  importunate,  and  in  which  the 
substantive  will  itself  answer  for  an  adjective ;  for  in  truth, 
is  not  every  substantive  by  implication  an  adjective  ? 

A  very  vivid  sentiment  now  suppresses,  now  multiplies 
epithets.  In  a  compact  cogent  argument,  speech,  intent  on 
its  purpose,  rejects  qualifying  words,  which  are  not  absolutely 
necessary.  It  may  have  a  style,  m  that  case,  made  up  of 
substantives. 

But  if  adjectives  conceal  themselves,  and  retreat,  so  to 
speak,  into  the  bosom  of  substantives,  when  thought  is  con- 
centrated, when  it  girds  up  its  loins  to  move  more  quickly, 
there  are  moments  of  flowing  emotion,  when  epithets  will  re-ap- 
pear and  abound;  there  are  not  enough  of  means  for  character- 
izing objects.  The  adjective  now  is  as  necessary  as  the  sub- 
stantive ;  it  makes  part  of  it.  In  this  case,  redundance  itself 
is  pleasing. 

Voire  crime  est  enorme,  execrable,  odieux.* 

Description  delights  in   multiplying  epithets  when  they 

*  Duois,  Hamlet,  act  v.,  scene  iv.  See,  also,  the  exordium  of 
Cicero's  third  oration  against  Cataline. 


438  COLOE. 

form  an  image,  or  when  they  characterize  the  object,  or  put  it 
in  relation  or  contrast  with  its  situation.*     But  the   more 
freely  we  use  these,  the  less   are  we  permitted  to  use  trivial 
ones ;  they  must  express  something.     Not  that  we  should 
aim  to   be  extraordinary  ;  the  simplest   epithet,  that  which 
every  one  would  think  of,  is  often  the  best,f  best  suits  true 
style.     But  in  general  they  ought  to  be  striking,  to  present 
a  picture,  or  to  contain  a  judgment.     Some  epithets  paint, 
others  characterize ;    the    first  are    images,  the  others   are 
thoughts.    We  present  an  example  of  the  use  of  both : 
Et  dans  les  flancs  affreux  de  leurs  roches  sanglantes, 
Emportent,  a  grand  cris,  leurs  depoilles  vivantes.  % 
Poursuivant   des  proscrits,  les  troupes  egarees, 
Du  sang  de  ses  sujets  souillait    ses  mains  sacrees,§ 

Combined  epithets  often  have  great  force  : 

La  mort  pale  et  sanglante  etait  a  ses  cotes. 

De  I'enfer  il  ne  sort 

Que  I'eternelle  soif  d'une  inpossible  mort.  | 

*  Virgil  here  is  admirable ;  see  Georgics,  lib.  iii.,  verses  494-600, 
and  615-524.     ^neid,  lib.  ii.,  verses  204-211. 

\  ISTaivete  of  antique  epithets.     The  most  common  are  again  be- 
coming piquant.     We  are  beginning  to  %2cj perfumed  rose,  fresh  dawn, 
rapid  river,  green  meadow.    We  say  with  propriety,  blue  lake.    I  can- 
not condemn  epithets  such  as  those  in  Esther,  act  i.,  scene  ii. 
Sacres  monts,  fertiles  vallees, 
Du  dotix  pays  de  nos  aieux 
Serons-nous  toujours  exile  es  ? 

if  Voltaire,  La  Henriade,  chant  ii. 

"  Their  living  spoil,  -with  shouts,  they  bear  away, 

Into  the  dread  sides  of  their  blood-stained  rocks." 
§         "  Pursuing  outlaws,  wandering  hordes,  the  blood 

Of  his  own  subjects  stained  his  sacred  hands." — ^Tr. 
H  "  Death,  pale  and  bloody,  was  at  his  side. 

From  hell. 

Nought  proceeds  save  the  eternal  thirst 

For  a  death  impossible." — Tr. 


COLOR.  439 

"  When  all  parties  were  prostrated,  he  seemed  still  to  sus- 
tain himself  alone,  and  alone  to  threaten  the  victorious  fa- 
vorite by  his  sorrowful  and  intrepid  looks."* 

The  same  may  be  said  of  contrasted  epithets. 

"  More  powerful  death  removed  her  from  us  while  in  these 
royal  hands."f 

Le  temps,  cette  image  mobile 

De  I'immobile  eternite.ij: 

Pour  reparer  des  ans  I'irreparable  outrage. § 

New  epithets,  adjectives  turned  aside  somewhat  from  their 
ordinary  signification,  may,  if  practicable,  be  employed,  pro- 
vided no  violence  be  done  to  the  language,  as  in  these  asso- 
ciation of  words  :  "  Disciple  lumineux,  im  homme  irrepara- 
ble ;  une  ame  douleureuse."|| 

But  I  cannot  commend  the  use  of  extraordinary  epithets 
in  the  pulpit ;  it  should  avoid  exciting  surprise. 

And,  in  general,  use  epithets  soberly.  A  style  made  some- 
what substantial  by  the  addition  of  an  adjective  to  a  sub- 
stantive, becomes  feeble,  you  may  be  assured,  by  the  abun- 
dant use  of  epithets.  Observe  how  economical  of  them  are 
the  masters.  Massillon  has  more  than  Bossuet,  but  although 
he  has  the  art  of  multiplying  them  appropriately,  he  is  very 
far  from  using  them  profusely. 

B.  Indirect  means  of  painting  relieve  the  object  by  giving 
boldness  to  some  features  of  it,  by  heightning  the  color 
through  the  approximation  of  some  other  object.  We  ap- 
proach here  the  figurative  style. 

*  Bossuet,  Oraison  fimebre  de  Michel  Letellier. 

f  BossuKT,  Oraison  funehre  de  Henriette  d' Angleterre. 

X  J-  B.  Rousseau,  Odes,  livre  iii.  ode  ii.  "Time,  that  changeable 
image  of  unchangeable  eternity." — ^Tr. 

§  Racine,  Athalie,  acte  ii.,  scene  v.  "  To  repair  the  irreparable 
wrongs  of  years," — Tr. 

11  "Luminous  disciple,  an  irreparable  man;  a  painful  soul." — Tr, 


440  COLOR. 

Antithesis  is  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  powerful 
and  most  perilous  means  of  giving  prominence  to  objects. 
It  is  an  opposition  of  ideas  marked  by  words ;  so  that  there 
is  no  antithesis  when  the  things  alone,  or  when  the  words 
alone  are  contrasted.  But,  in  the  first  case,  we  have  no  figure ; 
and  in  the  second  case,  we  have  a  puerile  figure,  a  play  of  words 
a  falsehood  in  expression.  "  Those  who  make  antitheses," 
says  Pascal,  "  by  forcing  words,  are  like  men  who  make 
false  windows  for  the  sake  of  symmetry."*  The  taste  for  an- 
tithesis belongs  esj^ecially  to  epochs  and  minds  defective  in 
simplicity ;  it  is  a  spice  for  giving  edge  to  a  blunted  palate. 
Good  authors  seldom  use  it ;  Demosthenes  never  ;  Bossuet 
rarely  ;  Flechier  more  frequently,  who  in  his  funeral  oration 
for  Turenne  ventures  to  say :  "  After  so  many  actions 
worthy  of  immortality,  had  he  nothing  more  to  do  with  mor- 
tality V  "Wit  is  but  a  poor  supplement  of  eloquence,  it  is 
much  more  common  ;  and  the  orator  should  not  suffer  him- 
self to  be  ensnared  by  it.  Far-fetched  antithesis  is  always 
bad  ;  it  is  admissible,  if  ever,  only  when  it  escapes  involun- 
tarily, and  proceeds  from  the  soul.  When  there  is  an  oppo- 
sition in  things,  we  must  not  fear  to  mark  it  in  words  ;  but 
opposition  in  ideas  sometimes  gains  by  not  marking  it  in 
words. 

Christianity  favored  the  use  of  antithesis,  and  was  itself, 
we  may  say,  full  of  it.  In  order  to  reconcile  certain  oppo- 
sites,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  at  first  to  make  them  prom- 
inent. Christian  writers,  also,  of  all  times,  have  more  or 
less  abounded  in  the  use  of  it.  Modern  languages,  and  we 
may  say  to  a  certain  extent,  manners  and  thoughts  also,  are 
christian  in  one  complete  aspect.  It  is  this  that  explains  the 
difference  which  may  be  remarked  between  modern  and  an- 
cient authors,  in  respect  to  the  use  of  antithesis.  Paganism 
suppressed  it,  that  it  might,  so  to  speak,  give  a  certain  unity 
•*  Pascal,  Pennies,  partie  i.,  art.  x.  §  xxii. 


COLOE.  441 

to  life,  a  factitious  unity,  unquestionably,  which  arose  from 
the  negation  or  ignorance  of  one  of  the  terms  of  those  great 
contrasts  which  human  life  presents  to  us.  Christianity,  by 
boldly  exhibiting  the  contrasts  it  would  reconcile,  has  brought 
into  view  the  antitheses  of  our  existence.  It  is  not  therefore 
surprising  that  many  of  the  great  achievements  of  the  chris- 
tian pulpit  result  from  the  use  of  antithesis.  But  we  repeat 
what  we  have  said,  that  we  ought  in  this  matter  to  rely  on 
the  substance  of  things,  to  guard  against  witticisms  and  a 
pliant  and  cold  rhetoric  which  characterizes  periods  of  decay, 
and  indicates  a  want  of  inspiration. 

One  of  the  most  effectual  means  of  giving  character  and 
color  to  expression,  is  metaphor,  a  name  under  which  we  may 
comprehend  all  the  forms  of  the  figurative  style.  It  transfers 
to  one  class  of  objects  qualities  which  belong  to  another. 
The  reason  for  the  substitution  is  that  the  mind  is  more  struck 
with  an  idea  when  it  is  appropriated  to  an  object  in  which  we 
do  not  expect  to  meet  with  it.  Metaphor  has  two  forms 
which  have  their  ground  in  the  complex  nature  of  man.  Man 
unites  in  himself  two  natures,  which  influence  one  another, 
which  continually  have  need  of  one  another,  and  he  always 
endeavors  to  interblend  them.  Hence  it  comes  that  we  give 
a  body  to  metaphysical  and  moral  objects,  and  a  moral  life 
to  physical  objects.  These  two  forms  of  metaphor  or  trans- 
ference are  as  ancient  as  man  ;  but  the  primitive  metaphors 
have  ceased  to  be  figures ;  on  the  ground  of  language,  they 
have  no  longer  any  prominence. 

The  most  common  form  of  the  metaphor  is  that  which  con- 
sists in  giving  a  body,  a  form,  a  color  to  things  which  are  des- 
titute of  them ;  compelling  language  to  assume  a  material 
element.  The  other,  which  designates  the  physical  by  the 
spiritual,  is  of  a  higher  order ;  it  refers  us  to  our  spiritual 
nature  as  the  former  does  to  our  physical.  Metaphors  of  this 
class,  show  that  mind  prevails  over  everything  ;  for  though 

19* 


442  COLOR. 

we  are  obliged  to  give  things  of  the  moral  order  names  which 
are  taken  from  the  physical,  we  are  not  obliged  to  name 
physical  things  from  moral  ones.  These  intellectual  meta- 
phors are  of  great  beauty ;  they  abound  in  holy  scripture : 
"  For  my  sword  shall  be  bathed  in  heaven ;  behold  it  shall 
come  down  upon  Idumea,  and  upon  the  people  of  my  curse, 
to  judgment,  "  (Isaiah,  xxxiv,  5  ;)  but  they  are  found  in  the 
texture  of  all  languages.  The  pantheistic  tendency  which 
poisons  so  many  modern  writings,  has  contributed  to  their  re- 
vival ;  but  they  are  confined  to  no  system,  no  times.  See 
Bossuet :  "  How  different  this  voyage  from  that  which  she 
had  made  over  the  same  sea,  when  going  to  take  possession 
of  the  throne  of  Great  Britain,  she  saw,  so  to  speak,  the 
waters  bending  beneath  her,  and  subjecting  all  their  waves 
to  the  mistress  of  the  seas."* 

Metaphor  is  very  powerful ;  it  is  like  a  mirror  in  which 
we  see  what  is  behind  us,  and  what  cannot  be  seen  without 
it.  It  has  often  all  the  force  of  a  syllogism.  It,  moreover, 
gives  an  additional  idea,  a  wider  and  fuller  view  of  an  object. 
Thus  La  Bruyere  has  said  of  true  greatness :  "  that  it  gracious- 
ly condescends  to  its  inferiors,  and  returns  without  effort  into 
its  native  element,  "f 

We  cannot  but  desire  that  the  style  of  the  pulpit  were 
less  insubstantial,  less  abstract,  more  figurative,  than  that 
which  it  commonly  employs.  Our  style,  as  Bossuet  said  of 
Calvin's,  is  somewhat  triste.  We  have  to  do  with  the  peo- 
ple, for  religion  reduces  its  hearers  to  the  quality  of  men,  it 
approximates  them  to  nature,  it  makes  people  and  children 
all  one. 

"  When,"  says  Marmontel,  "  we  give  ourselves  up  to  na- 
tural impressions,  we  all  become  children  together."  I  will 
reverse  this  proposition,  and  with  him  I  will  add :   "  Our 

*  Bossuet,  Oral&on  funihre  de  la  reine  Henriette. 

\  La  Bruylrk  Lc8  Caractcres,  chaj).  ii,     I)u  inerite  personnel. 


COLOR.  443 

natural  condition  is  that  of  the  people."  We  must  then,  in 
a  certain  sense,  speak  like  the  people ;  and  popular  language 
is  metaphorical.  We  must  not,  however,  force  our  talent. 
In  literature  as  well  as  in  morality,  what  is  not  of  faith  is 
sin.  The  free  use  of  metaphor  implies  a  fruitfulness  of  im- 
agination which  does  not  belong  to  all.  But  to  those  who  by 
the  cast  of  their  mind  are  inclined  to  be  imaginative,  we 
must  say  in  the  way  of  caution  : 

1.  That  the  habit  of  expressing  everything  figuratively  may 
become  a  mental  indolence,  and  make  us  forgetful  of  the  true 
names  of  things. 

2.  That  it  is  what  may  happen,  and  it  is  a  great  fault,  to 
be  satisfied  with  imagery  ;  to  be  content  with  weakness  of 
ideas,  if  intrinsic  vacuity,  may,  though  but  a  little,  be  dis- 
guised by  an  agreeable  or  captivating  form. 

Vauvenargues,  on  this  point,  has  well  said,  that  "  when  a 
thought  is  too  weak  to  bear  a  simple  expression,  it  shows 
that  it  ought  to  be  rejected."* 

3.  That  preaching  by  an  abuse  of  metaphor  may  introduce 
false  ideas.  In  this  way  metaphor,  which  gives  life  to  inani- 
mate things  and  personifies  abstractions,  may  be  dangerous. 
It  has  sometimes  misguided  and  retarded  the  progress  of 
moral  and  social  philosophy  ;  as  when  it  has  represented  so- 
ciety as  an  individual  being. 

4.  Finally,  that  the  affluence  of  imagery  is  unsuitable  to 
the  pulpit.  If  the  style  of  the  preacher  ought  not  to  be  som- 
bre, still  less  should  it  be  frivolous ;  and  profuse  imagery, 
even  if  perfectly  proper,  regarded  in  itself,  destroys  its  grav- 
ity. For  the  same  reason  we  must  exclude  metaphors 
which  show  too  much  ingenuity,  and  which  incline  to  wit.  In 
general,  wit  and  eloquence  are  hostile  to  eaeh  other,  especial- 
ly wit  and  pulpit  eloquence,  with  which  every  appearance  of 
frivolity  is  especially  incongruous. 

*  Vauvenargues,  ReJlexio7is  et  Maximes.  \ 

\ 


444  COLOR. 

Voltaire  thinks  that  passion  should  always  supply  meta- 
phor ;  a  too  absolute,  yet  a  valuable  judgment.  It  implies 
that  beauty  and  strength  of  style  should  be  one  and  the 
same  thing,  and  that  whatever  interests  the  imagination 
must,  as  far  as  may  be,  touch  the  heart.  An  image  in  which 
the  writer's  soul  is  revealed,  is  more  excellent  than  every 
other  which  simply  displays  intelligence. 

In  this  respect  Bossuet  is  admirable.  For  example,  he 
says  :  "  Thus  we  proceed,  always  drawing  after  us  the  long, 
dragging  chain  of  our  hopes."  Ornaments  should  be  closely 
united  with  ideas,  and  be,  as  it  were,  interfused  into  the  very 
texture  of  the  composition. 

Allegory,  which  is  very  little  used  in  preaching,  though  it 
has  for  its  authority  divine  eloquence  itself,  is  a  form  which 
might  be  introduced  anew,  by  one  who  has  a  talent  for 
it.  It  is  ancient,  but  it  may  be  modernized,  and  though  it 
would  at  first  produce  surprise,  it  would  become  acceptable, 
for  it  is  eminently  popular.  Still,  if  metaphor  has  the  dan- 
gers which  we  thought  we  ought  to  indicate,  allegory,  which 
is  a  metaphor  prolonged,  should  be  used  with  great  caution, 
for  it  may  easily  assume  the  appearance  of  intellectual 
amusement.  The  parables  of  the  gospel  which  resemble  al- 
legory, have  so  pre-eminently  serious  a  character  that  they 
allow  the  mind  no  liberty  to  withdraw  itself  from  religious 
influence  and  lose  itself  in  amusement.  We  must  not  now 
venture  on  such  an  allegory  as  that  on  old  age,  (Ecclesiastes, 
xii.  2-9  ;)  it  is  strictly  an  enigma ;  but  an  allegory  like  that 
of  the  vine  (Isaiah,  v.)  might  be  admitted  into  a  modem  dis- 
course. We  must  have  respect,  too,  to  the  auditors  we  address. 

Comparison  is  an  explicit  metaphor,  as  metaphor  is  an  im- 
plied comparison.  Comparison  is  inore  artless,  and,  as  an 
ornament,  it  is  more  ancient  than  metaphor ;  it  abounds  in 
Homer,  who  spreads  out  all  its  folds,  while  with  moderns  its 
form  is  more  rapid  and  concentrated.     It  is  somewhat  slug- 


coLOE.  446 

gish  in  its  nature  ;  it  walks  instead  of  marching  or  running  ; 
it  seems  to  imply  that  we  should  to  be  at  leisure,  that  we 
may  delay ;  it  suits  poetry  better  than  oratory.  We  should 
not  think  of  excluding  it  from  the  pulpit,  but  it  is  not  spe- 
cially proper  to  it.  Excepting  Bossuet,  great  preachers 
make  but  little  use  of  it.  Even  he  uses  it  more  freely  in 
panegyric  and  in  funeral  orations,  than  in  sermons.* 

Rapid  comparisons  thrown  into  the  midst  of  recitation  and 
reasoning,  as  the  discourse  advances,  are  to  be  preferred  : 

Henri,  plein  de  I'ardeur 
Que  le  combat  encore  enflammait  dans  son  coeur, 
Semblable  a  I'ocean  qui  s'apaise  et  qui  gronde.f 

Par  levibus  ventis,  volucri  que  simillima  somno.:j: 

And  Bossuet :  "  Greatness,  far  from  impairing  goodness, 
does  but  contribute  to  its  enlargement,  as  a  public  fountain  is 
elevated  that  it  may  send  forth  its  streams  farther."§  And 
again :  "  This  formidable  infantry  of  the  Spanish  army, 
whose  great  battalions  in  close  array,  like  so  many  towers — 
towers  which  are  able  to  repair  their  breaches,  remained  im- 
movable."! We  do  not,  however,  condemn  altogether  ex- 
tended comparisons  even  in  the  sermon. 

They  may  be  familiar ;  they  ought  to  be  so  in  one  sense, 
that  is  to  say,  they  should  be  taken  from  objects  which  are 

*  See  le  Panesgrique  de  saint  Paul  et  Voraison  funebre  du  grand 
Conde. 

f  VoLTAiKE,  La  Henriade,  chap.  vi. : 

"  Filled  with  the  zeal  with  which  the  battle  still 
Inflamed  his  heart,  Henry,  like  ocean  seemed, 
When  calm  yet  murmuring." — Tr. 

\  Virgil,  jEneid,  lib.  ii.,  vs.  '794: 

§  Bossuet,  Oraison  funebre  du  prince  de  Conde. 

II  Ibid. 


446  COLOR. 

well  known  ;*  still  they  should  be  noble.  This  of  Bossuet 
is  not  so :  "  The  soul  is  not  less  eager,  its  desires  not  less 
excited,  when  it  is  in  want,  than  when  it  has  abundance.  It 
is  with  the  soul  as  with  the  hairs  of  one's  head  ;  we  feel  the 
same  pain,  whether  they  are  plucked  from  a  bald  head,  or 
from  a  head  covered  with  hair."j' 

Saurin  is  more  happy  in  the  passage  already  cited  : 
"  If  God  had  given  us  a  life  full  of  attractions,  we  should 
have  had  no  desire  for  another.  It  is  natural  to  love  an 
abode  in  which  we  find  delight ;  whatever  attracts  us  to  earth 
abates  the  ardor  we  may  have  for  heaven  ;  the  inward  man 
is  renewed  when  the  outward  man  decays,  and  our  faith  is 
built  up  on  the  ruins  of  our  fortune.  When  the  dove  found, 
out  of  the  ark,  the  unchained  winds,  the  overflow  of  waters, 
the  flood-gates  of  the  heavens  open,  the  whole  world  buried 
under  the  waves,  she  sought  refuge  in  the  ark.  But  when 
she  found  valleys  and  fields,  she  remained  in  them.  My 
soul  see  the  image  of  thyself"  J 

*  Demosthenes,  has  said :  "  Like  moulders  of  clay  you  fabricate 
taxiarchs  and  tribunes  for  exhibition,  not  for  war."  And  again : 
"As  in  an  edifice  or  a  ship,  the  lower  parts  should  be  the  most  solid, 
so  we  make  justice  and  truth  the  foundation  of  government." — 
"While  a  ship,  great  or  small,  is  not  yet  lost,  sailors,  pilot,  passen- 
gers, ought  to  unite  earnestly  to  prevent  perfidy  or  rashness  from 
destroying  it ;  but  all  effort  becomes  useless  when  it  is  buried  in  the 
waves.  Thus,  Atlienians,  so  long  as  our  republic  is  still  erect,  sus- 
tained by  great  forces,  by  numberless  resources  and  the  most  bril- 
liant renown,  what  shall  we  do?"  In  regard  to  the  comparisons 
which  he  employs,  the  great  Greek  orator  may  serve  as  a  model. 
They  are  remarkable  for  their  rapidity  and  their  practical  character. 

f  See  the  artless  comparison  with  which  Segneri  commences  his 
first  sermon  du  Christiano  instruito  nella  sua  leyge. 

X  Saurin,  Sermon  sur  lejeune  celebre  a  I'ouverture  de  la  campagne  de 
1706. 


/ 


MOVEMENT.  447 


§3.  Movement. 

This  is  the  second  character  or  element  of  an  eloquent 
style.  Physical  movement  is  passing  from  one  place  to 
another ;  internal  movement  should  be  the  same ;  the  move- 
ment of  style  will  then  consist  in  transferring  the  hearer  from 
one  moral  place  or  situation  into  another.  This  movement 
is  not  life,  but  it  is  the  effect  and  evidence  of  life.  We  can- 
not conceive  of  life  vrithout  movement,  and  after  a  time 
immobility  appears  to  us  to  be  death.  Tliese  two  ideas  of 
m.ovement  and  life  unite  so  naturally  in  our  minds,  that 
wherever  we  see  movement,  we  assume  or  imagine  there  is 
life.*  The  beauty  of  a  quiet  lake  charms  us  in  vain  by  the 
purity  with  which  it  reflects  its  shores  ;  we  would  see  it  agi- 
tated and  the  image  of  its  shores  trembling  in  its  waters. 
Thus  as  to  style  ;  we  are  not  satisfied  that  it  purely  reflects 
objects,  we  require  movement  in  it ;  but  between  the  two 
mirrors  there  are  two  differences ;  in  the  second  we  would 
always  have  movement,  without  the  trembling  of  the  ob- 
jects, that  is  to  say,  the  movement  of  the  style,  without 
any  interference  with  perspicuity  of  representation. 

What  an  orator  desires,  if  he  is  truly  an  orator,  is  not 
only  to  give  clear  or  even  bright  reprnsentations,  nor  to  con- 
nect his  ideas  with  each  other  so  exactly  that  there  shall  be 
no  interruption  of  logical  continuity  from  the  begmning  to 
the  end  ;  nor  even  that  this  chain  should  be  so  ccftnplete  that 
the  proof  should  not  be  one  moment  suspended,  but  the  dis- 
course be,  so  to  speak,  as  a  single  breath ; — oratorical  dis- 
course is  an  action ;  this  action,  which  proceeds  from  the 
soul,  supposes  emotion  ;  it  would,  of  course,  represent  but  a 
part  of  what  ought  to  be  represented,  if  it  were  only  log- 
ical, clear,  bright,  and  even  profound,  and  the  hearer  would 

*  See  Maemontel,  Elements  de  litterature,  tome  iv.,  pages  441,  454, 
article,  Du  Mouvement. 


448  MOVEMENT. 

receive  only  a  part  of  the  impressions  which  he  should  to* 
ceive  from  it.  If  the  orator  is  not  wholly  united  to  his  sub- 
ject, if  the  discourse  be  not  an  action  of  man  upon  man,  if 
it  be  not,  as  we  have  said  it  should  be,  a  drama  with  its  plot, 
its  incidents  and  its  catastrophe,  it  wants  that  communicative 
life,  and,  we  may  even  say  that  truth,  without  which  t:i.>  end 
of  oratorical  discourse  is  wanting  in  respect  to  the  majority 
of  hearers,  who  require  to  feel  the  truth  as  identified  with 
him  who  exhibits  and  endeavors  to  unfold  it. 

The  orator,  moved  by  his  subject,  moved  by  his  auditory, 
cannot  but  transfer  to  liis  style  the  emotion  which  he  feels  ; 
now,  emotion  is  a  movement,  that  is,  to  speak  exactly,  pass- 
ing from  one  moral  place  to  another ;  a  momentary  emotion 
is  a  change  of  place,  a  continuous  emotion  is  a  succession  of 
changes  which  arise  one  after  another.  Movement  must  be 
distinguished  from  movements.  There  are  abrupt  move- 
ments which  are  very  fine,  but  still  oratorical  movement  is 
not  necessarily  abrupt.  It  is  different  with  different  orators, 
with  some  it  is  gentle  and  soft.  In  vain  might  we  smite  the 
sides,  multiply  blows,  strike  with  the  foot,  the  soul  of  the 
hearer  yields  only  to  a  true  movement.  To  adopt  any  other, 
as  Cicero  has  somewhere  said,  "  is  to  leap,  not  to  walk." 

Movement  is  the  royal  beauty  of  style,  the  characteristic 
of  great  writers  and  great  epochs.  In  the  models,  images  in- 
terblendin^with  movement  are  furnished  by  movement  it- 
self Color  and  life  come  together.  Thus  the  pale  counte- 
nance of  Atalanta  acquires  color  from  the  swiftness  of  her 
course.  Images  are  not  contrary  to  movement ;  they  may 
even  contribute  to  it,  since  they  may  be  impassioned  ;  but  in 
themselves,  they  produce  it  no  more  than  would  a  mirror, 
since  they  are  but  the  mirror  of  things.  Movement  corre- 
sponds to  the  soul ;  eloquence  may  dispense  with  everything 
except  truth  and  movement ;  the  most  naked,  the  most  aus- 


MOVEMENT.  449 

tere,  the  least  colored  style,  may  be  eloquent.     The  first  beau- 
ties are  beauties  e7i  blanc,  or  between  lines. 

We  are  taught  by  experience  that  one  may  have  been  very 
much  interested  in  his  subject,  and  yet  not  have  movement 
in  his  style ;  force  of  thought,  seriousness  of  language,  may, 
to  a  certain  extent,  take  the  place  of  it.  It  is  no  less  certain 
that  a  discourse  of  a  grave,  calm,  and  so  to  speak,  immov- 
able style,  may,  in  certain  circumstances,  make  a  sufficiently 
deep  impression.  But  in  general,  the  emotion  of  the  hearer 
is  in  direct  proportion  to  that  of  the  orator,  if  the  subject  is 
deserving  of  it.  And  as  a  christian  orator  has  a  two-fold 
object  of  interest,  his  subject  and  his  hearers,  we  may  with 
the  more  reason  expect  to  see  him  moved. 

Pulpit  eloquence,  however,  is  in  this  matter  restricted  within 
narrower  limits  than  eloquence  of  other  kinds.*  It  can 
scarcely  be  vehement,  that  is  to  say,  impassioned.  The  preach- 
er is  as  much  an  instructor  as  an  orator ;  movement  in  his 
discourse,  therefore,  will  be  more  quiet  than  in  that  of  politi- 
cal and  judicial  eloquence.  The  love  of  a  minister  of  God's ' 
word,  for  divine  things,  ought  to  be  immeasurable ;  still  we 
dare  not  call  that  love  by  the  name  of  passion.  Reverence 
demands  discretion,  and  Christianity  would  win  us  to  good- 
ness only  by  good  means. 

Movement  has  very  different  forms,  many  of  which  it  is 
difficult  to  seize  and  name.  We  can  indicate  only  those  which 
are  least  delicate.  We  must,  in  the  first  place,  distinguish 
those  which  have  place  in  the  expository  style,  and  those  which 
consist  in  passing  beyond  the  limits  of  this  style. 

The  expository  style  is  a  style  i7i  repose.  But  here  I  dis- 
tinguish between  movement  of  style  and  that  logical  move- 
ment of  which  we  spoke  when  treating  of  disposition. 

It  is  indeed  true,  that  movement  may  show  itself  in  the 
expository  style,  by  rapidity  in  the  succession  of  ideas  and  by 
*  Read  the  third  Philippic  of  Demosthenes. 


450  MOVEMENT. 

vivacity  m  turns  of  expression.  But  movement  of  style  is 
especially  apparent,  when  we  forsake  the  expository  style. 
Strictly  speaking,  the  expository  style  regards  only  the  idea, 
excluding  the  personality  of  him  who  expresses  and  those 
who  hear  it.  Whatever  recognizes  these  elements  removes 
us  from  it ;  we  leave  it  always  in  direct  address.  This  is  not 
a  momentary  characteristic,  an  accidental  form;  it  is  the 
normal  permanent  characteristic  of  the  true  oratorical  style, 
and  this  single  characteristic  draws  after  it  all  the  rest  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  all  the  movements,  I  mean  to  say,  by 
which  style  may  be  enlivened. 

It,  is  characteristic  of  the  direct,  or  as  it  may  perhaps  be 
also  called  Xh^  frank  style,  that  it  never  seeks  the  end  by 
oblique  or  circuitous  means,  but  confronts  the  idea  directly, 
openly,  and  uses  expressions  adapted  most  immediately  to 
awaken  it  in  the  hearer's  mind.  We  speak  here,  however,  not 
of  a  moral  quality.  A  style  destitute  of  the  characteristic 
at  which  we  have  just  glanced,  may  breathe  frankness  and 
candor.  We  intend  what  in  business  matters  is  expressed 
by  the  phrase,  going  straight  to  the  fact.  There  is  an  indi- 
rect or  oblique  course  which  in  certain  compositions  is  ap- 
propriate and  agreeable.  No  style  is  more  indirect  than  La 
Bruyere's ;  none  is  better,  if  we  take  into  view  the  author's  de- 
sign :  "  1  suppose  men  immortal  here  on  earth ;  I  then  set 
myself  to  thinking  in  order  to  acquaint  myself  with  what 
they  would  do,  in  that  case,  beyond  what  they  are  doing  as 
things  now  are,  to  make  more  of  their  condition."*  What 
shall  we  say  of  the  Provincial  Letters^  which  are  written  in 
the  same  spirit  ?  No  other  than  the  direct  style  is  proper  in 
a  work  intended  to  be  of  the  popular  character,  to  affect  im- 
mediately the  masses.  The  less  the  interval  between  the 
thought  and  the  expression,  the  less  the  reader  is  obliged  to 
transform  the  expression  in  order  to  receive  the  direct  im- 
*  La  BauyKRic,  Lea  Caracteres  chap.  xl.    De  VHomine. 


MOVEMENT.  451 

pression  of  the  idea ;  in  a  word,  the  more  your  language  is 
the  vehicle  rather  than  the  equipage  of  thought  the  greater 
your  success  in  oratory.  You  may  be  elsewhere  tenuous, 
circuitous,  cunning,  sinuous ;  elsewhere  you  may  allow  your- 
self in  implied  meanings,  in  reticence,  in  allusions,  in  reflex 
ideas,  in  glimmerings,  in  indifference  and  affectation  of  doubt, 
in  simulation,  in  giving  the  principal  thing  as  an  accessory, 
and  vice  versa,  in  whatever  renders  style  ingenious ;  else- 
where it  may  suffice  to  make  what  you  wish  to  say  intelligi- 
ble ;  here  you  must  say  it. 

The  means  of  retaining  the  direct  style,  is  the  use  of  the 
allocutive  form,  that  of  direct  address  to  the  hearers.  With- 
out this  a  discourse  is  not  a  discourse,  but  a  book.  The  use 
of  this  form  compels  us  constantly  to  recur  to  the  direct 
style,  which  is  the  truly  powerful,  truly  oratorical  style. 
For  two  reasons,  I  recommend  this  form  ;  first,  because  the 
constant  use  of  it  will  make  you  almost  sure  of  attaining  the 
direct  style,  which  is  so  rare  and  so  difficult ;  next,  because, 
in  discourse  properly  so  called,  it  is  the  true,  the  only  true 
form,  and  whatever  is  false  is  feeble.  But  this  same  form, 
how  is  it  to  be  maintained,  how,  at  least,  when  the  discourse 
is  written,  as  our  reasoning  and  teaching  have  hitherto  sup- 
posed it  to  be  ? 

That  it  may  be  maintained,  facts,  the  examples  of  the  great 
masters,  demonstrate.  In  writing  a  discourse,  we  may  truly 
speak  it,  address  it  directly  not  to  a  public,  but  to  an  audi- 
ence, imagine  ourselves  in  the  orator's  position;  in  short, 
write  oratorically.  Whoever  would  write  thus,  should  as- 
semble his  flock  about  him  ;  the  habit  is  easily  formed. 

The  orator's  style  then  is  never  purely  expository.  But  a 
preacher  is  also  a  doctor ;  he  teaches,  and,  therefore,  simple 
exposition  in  his  discourse  may  be  in  place.  We  first  dis- 
tinguish the  figures  or  movements  which  are  included  within 
the  limits  of  the  expository  style. 


452  EEPETITION. 

1.  The  simplest,  most  short,  natural,  and  also  one  of  the 
strongest  and  sometimes  boldest,  is  repetition.  We  must 
not  here  be  imprudently  venturous,  for  from  the  very  sim- 
plicity of  this  form,  we  fall  very  low  if  we  have  not  complete 
success. .  It  is  with  it  as  wim  the  refrain  in  poetry,  which  has 
great  power  when  it  is  well  managed.  But  repetition  must, 
in  some  sort,  spring  out  of  the  subject,  must  come  without 
being  sought,  and  as  it  were  spontaneously.  Repetition  is 
an  artless  figure.  It  supposes  the  orator  to  be  profoundly 
excited,  and  absorbed  by  his  subject.  Bossuet  is  artless,  and 
among  the  great  masters  of  the  pulpit,  he  alone  is  dis- 
tinguished by  this  characteristic.  The  Bible  is  artless,  and 
it  supplies  us  with  remarkable  examples  of  repetition :  "  And 
I  also  have  given  you  cleanness  of  teeth  in  all  your  cities, 
and  want  of  bread  in  all  your  places.  Yet  have  ye  not  re- 
turned unto  me  saith  the  Lord.  And  also  I  have  withholden 
the  rain  from  you^  when  there  were  yet  three  months  to  the 
harvest ;  and  I  caused  it  to  rain  upon  one  city,  and  caused  it 
not  to  rain  upon  another  city ;  one  j)Jece  was  rained  upon, 
and  the  piece  whereupon  it  rained  not,  withered.  So  two  or 
three  cities  wandered  into  one  city  to  drink  water ;  but  they 
were  not  satisfied  ;  yet  have  ye  not  returned  unto  me,  saith 
the  Lord.  I  have  smitten  you  with  blasting  and  with  mil- 
dew ;  when  your  gardens  and  your  vineyards  and  your  fig 
trees  and  your  olive  trees  increased,  the  palmer  worm  de- 
voured them  ;  yet  have  ye  not  returned  unto  me,  saith  the 
Lord.  I  have  sent  among  you  the  pestilence  after  the  man- 
ner of  Egypt ;  your  young  men  have  I  slain  with  the  sword, 
and  I  have  taken  away  your  horses ;  and  I  have  made  the 
stink  of  your  camps  to  come  up  into  your  nostrils  ;  yet  have 
ye  not  returned  unto  me,  saith  the  Lord.  I  have  overthrown 
some  of  you  as  God  overthrew  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and 
ye  were  as  a  firebrand  plucked  out  of  the  burning  ;  yet  have 
ye  not  returned  unto  me,  saith  the   Lord.     Therefore  thus 


GRADUATION. — ACCUMULATION.  453 

will  I  do  unto  thee,  O  Israel ;  and  because  I  will  do  this  unto 
thee,  prepare  to  meet  thy  God,  O  Israel."* 

2.  Gradation^  which  is  an  important  form  of  movement 
and  an  essential  quality  of  style,  rises,  sometimes,  to  the 
rank  of  a  figure,  by  the  approximation  of  parts,  their  num 
ber,  and  the  rapidity  of  their  succession.  Thus  at  the  close 
of  the  fourteenth  Provincial^  the  summing  up  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Jesuits  on  homicide,  and  the  last  words  in  particular : 
"  Remember  that  the  first  crime  of  fallen  humanity  was  a 
homicide  committed  upon  the  person  of  the  first  righteous 
man  ;  that  its  greatest  crime  was  a  homicide  perpetrated  on 
him  who  was  chief  among  all  the  righteous,  and  that  homicide 
is  the  only  crime  which  destroys  at  once  the  State,  the  Church, 
nature,  and  piety."  And  in  the  Satyre  Menippee  :  "  Thou 
hast  barely  sustained  thy  king,  so  meek,  so  gentle,  so  afiable, 
who  became  as  a  townsman  and  a  burgher  of  his  city.  What 
do  I  say  ]  Barely  sustained  %  Much  worse ;  thou  hast  ban- 
ished him  from  his  city,  from  his  house,  from  his  bed. 
What,  banished  1  Thou  hast  pursued  him.  How  pursued  ? 
Hast  assassinated  him,  canonized  the  assassin,  and  made  bon- 
fires at  his  death."! 

3.  Accumulation,  which  is  often  combined  with  gradation, 
may  also  produce  a  very  great  effect.  The  sermon  of  Mas- 
sillon  on  the  Passion  of  Jesus  Christ,  contains  many  exam- 
ples of  it.  We  cite  only  one  :  "  I  conjure  thee,"  he  said  to 
him,  "  in  the  name  of  the  living  God  to  tell  us  if  thou  be 
Christ  the  Son  of  God.  But  if  there  is  a  sincere  desire  to 
know  the  truth,  why  interrogate  Himself  on  the  holiness  of 
his  ministry  ?  Ask  John  the  Baptist,  whom  ye  have  regard- 
ed as  a  prophet,  and  who  confessed  that  he  was  the  Christ ; 
ask  his  works,  which  none  before  him  had  done,  and  which 

*  Amos,  iv.  6,  12.  See  also  Seneca,  Natural  quaest.  lib.  vi.,  cap. 
xxiii.,  and  the  Life  of  Bridaine,  p.  170. 

f  Harangue  de  M.  d'Aubray,  pour  le  tiers  etat. 


454  RETICENCE. 

testified  that  it  is  the  Father  who  sent  him  ;  ask  the  witness- 
es of  his  life  and  you  will  see  if  imposture  was  ever  accom- 
panied by  such  marks  of  innocence  and  holiness ;  ask  the 
Scriptures,  ye  who  have  the  key  of  knowledge,  and  see  if 
Moses  and  the  prophets  have  not  borne  testimony  to  him  ; 
ask  the  blind  whose  eyes  he  opened,  the  dead  whom  he 
raised,  the  lepers  whom  he  healed,  the  people  whom  he  fed, 
the  sheep  of  Israel  whom  he  restored ;  and  they  will  tell  you 
that  never  has  God  given  such  power  to  man  ;  ask  the  heav- 
ens which  were  so  often  opened  over  his  head,  to  make  Imown 
to  you  that  this  was  the  well  beloved  Son ;  and  if  these 
testimonies  are  not  sufficient  ask  hell  itself,  and  learn  from 
the  demons  who,  in  obedience  to  him,  went  out  of  bodies, 
that  he  is  the  Holy  one  of  God.  But  there  is  here  no 
serious  inquiry  after  truth,  but  a  snare  laid  for  innocence ; 
and,  as  often  happens,  especially  to  the  great,  pre-occupied 
by  their  passions,  they  consult  and  do  not  wish  to  be  unde- 
ceived ;  they  seem  to  desire  instruction,  and  would  be  grieved 
to  be  enlightened." 

4.  Reticence  should  be  little  used  in  the  pulpit.  The  preach- 
er speaks  with  open  mouth,  he  has  nothing  to  conceal.  The 
orator,  however,  from  various  motives,  may  pause  before  he 
develops  an  idea,  especially  when  he  would  not  present  to 
the  imagination  too  vivid  pictures  of  what  is  gross  or  dis- 
agreeable. The  orator  of  the  senate  or  bar,  unquestionably 
has  more  frequent  occasion  than  the  preacher,  for  reticence. 
The  preacher,  however,  should  not  be  altogether  deprived  of 
a  movement  of  so  much  efficacy.  But  reticence  is  never 
proper,  unless  the  hearer  knows  with  certainty  what  is  not 
expressed.  In  a  discourse  of  my  own,  on  the  Principle  of 
Human  Equality^  I  do  not  follow  this  rule  in  an  instance 
of  reticence,  the  effect  of  which  is  lost.  "  How  soon  in  fact, 
does  inequality  insinuate  itself  among  brethren  according  to 
the  flesh,  whom  fortune  favors  unequally  1     How  often  does 


COREECTION.  456 

a  brother  find  a  haughty  patron  in  a  more  influential  brother, 
and  the  latter  a  servile  and  low  dependent  in  a  brother  less 

fortunate  1     How  often  indeed, But  let  us  not  go 

too  far ;  let  us  not  wantonly  profane  the  idea  of  the  sweetest 
of  earthly  relationships."* 

5.  Correction  is  an  excellent  figure  when  it  is  not  a  figure, 
when  the  orator  perceives  that  his  emotion  has  involuntarily 
overpowered  him,  and  recovers  himself  without  calculating 
how  he  is  to  correct,  restrain,  or  complete  what  he  has  said. 
It  may  be  very  beautiful  or  very  vulgar.  Such  expressions 
as,  What  do  I  say,  though  common  in  oratorical  discourse, 
are  very  far  from  being  always  happy.  But  Bossuet  is  ad- 
mirable in  this  passage  from  the  funeral  oration  of  Henrietta 
of  England: 

"  No,  after  what  we  have  just  said,  health  is  but  a  name, 
life  but  a  dream,  glory  but  an  appearance,  grace  and  pleasure 
but  a  dangerous  amusement ;  all  that  pertains  to  us  is  vain, 
except  the  sincere  confession  of  our  vanity  to  God,  and  the 
settled  judgment  which  leads  us  to  despise  whatever  we  are. 

"  But  do  I  say  the  truth  1  Is  man  whom  God  has  made  in 
his  own  image  only  a  shadow "?  Is  that  a  mere  nothing  which 
Jesus  Christ  came  from  heaven  to  earth  to  seek,  which  he 
supposed  he  might  redeem  by  his  own  blood  without  dishonor 
to  himself?  We  acknowledge  our  mistake.  This  gloomy 
view  of  human  vanity  has  doubtless  deceived  us.  The  sud- 
den ft-ustration  of  public  hope  by  the  death  of  this  princess, 
has  carried  us  too  far.  Man  must  not  be  permitted  to  despise 
himself  altogether,  lest  while  thinking  with  the  impious  that 
life  is  a  jest  or  the  reign  of  chance,  he  walk  at  the  impulse 
of  his  blind  desires,  without  rule  and  without  guidance."! 

*  Nouveaux  Discours  sur  quelques  sujets  religieux,  edition  of  1841, 
p.  284.     See  an  example  of  reticence  in  Cicero,  Fro  Ligario,  cap.  x. 

f  Compare  the  Correction  of  Flechier,  in  Voraison  funehre  de  Tur- 
enne  :  "  But  what  do  I  say  ?     We  must  not,  etc." 


466  PEETERMISSION. — IRONY. 

6.  Pretermission  seems  to  imply  a  desire  to  pass  in  silence 
what  is  too  well  known  or  too  manifest  to  need  mention,  while 
expressing  it  with  an  emphasis  proportioned  to  the  orator's 
appearance  of  being  opposed  to  dwelling  upon  it.  Cicero 
often  uses  it  happily.*  Pretermission  is  used  to  classify  two 
orders  of  ideas  or  arguments ;  and  while  it  seems  to  put  one 
class  aside,  which  yet  it  takes  pains  to  represent  as  far  from 
having  no  value,  it  gives  in  advance  to  those  which  are  to 
follow,  a  great  appearance  of  strength.  But  ideas  which  are 
thus  introduced,  must  satisfy  the  expectation  which  is  excited,  f 
A  too  frequent  use  of  this  procedure  is  not  perhaps  in  per- 
fect accordance  with  the  candor  and  frankness  of  the  dis- 
course of  the  pulpit.  Massillon  seems  prodigal  of  it,  for  he 
often  presents  an  entire  argument  under  the  form  of  preter- 
mission. 

7.  Irony ^  which  was  much  employed  by  ancient  orators,]; 
cannot  be  excluded  from  the  pulpit,  for  the  Bible  makes  fre- 
quent use  of  it ;  but  it  should  be  introduced  with  caution,  on 
account  of  the  dangers  which  accompany  it.  It  should  never 
be  otherwise  than  serious,  and  never  offend  charity.  We 
may  cite  here  the  beginning  of  the  application  of  Saurin's 
first  sermon  on  the  Delay  of  Conversion : 

*  Pro  Milone,  cap.  xi.     In  Pisonem,  cap.  xxxvii. 

f  See  Flechier,  Oraison  funebre  de  Turenne:  "I  can  show  you, 
sirs,  as  many  trophies  on  the  shores  of  the  Rhine,  as  on  those  of  the 
Escaut  and  the  Sambre,  etc." 

%  See  Demosthenes,  Second  Philippic.  "  Then  you  who  attend  are 
better  qualified  than  Philip,  either  to  plead  the  justice  of  your  cause, 
or  to  apprehend  it  when  enforced  by  others ;  but  as  to  any  effectual 
opposition,  in  this  you  are  entirely  inactive.  You  see  then  the  con- 
sequence, the  necessary,  the  natural  consequence ;  each  of  you  ex- 
eels  in  that  which  hath  engaged  your  time  and  application  ;  he  in 
acting,  you  in  speaking."  (Leland's  Translation.)  Cicero  pushes 
irony  even  to  sarcasm.  See  Pro.  Milone,  cap.  vii.,  and  in  Catilinam, 
i.,  cap.  X. 


HYPERBOLE.^ — PARADOX.  457 

"  To  be  truly  converted,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  perform 
some  act  from  love  to  God,  this  love  must  be  the  ruling  dis- 
position of  our  heart.  There  are  visionary  persons  who  are 
otfended  when  we  urge  these  great  truths  of  religion,  and  in- 
cessantly proclaim  in  our  ear  these  maxims  :  '  Take  heed  to 
yourselves,  christians ;  they  shake  the  foundations  of  your 
faith ;  there  is  poison  in  this  docti'ine.'  " 

"  My  brethren,  if  this  were  a  subject  less  grave  and  serious, 
we  could  not  forbear  turning  such  scruples  into  ridicule. 
Take  heed  to  yourselves,  indeed,  there  is  poison.  We  would 
urge  you  to  love  God  with  all  your  heart ;  we  would  urge 
you  to  consecrate  your  life  to  him ;  we  would  urge  you  not 
to  defer  your  conversion,  to  prepare  yourselves  for  a  holy 
death  by  the  constant  exercise  of  piety  and  repentance.  Is 
it  not  obvious  that  we  should  have  great  care  in  admitting 
such  a  doctrine,  and  that  the  church  would  be  in  a  deplorable 
condition,  if  all  its  members  should  assume  these  dispositions. 
But,  as  we  have  said  already,  this  is  a  subject  too  grave  and 
too  serious  to  admit  of  raillery." 

8.  We  may  mention  hyperbole^  which  is  very  ancient,  and 
which  abounds  in  the  Bible.  But  we  can  scarcely  give  posi- 
tive rules  for  its  use ;  here  everything  depends  on  the  posture 
and  movement  which  the  discourse  has  given  to  the  minds 
of  the  hearers. 

9.  Paradox  approaches  hyperbole.  It  gives  a  striking  and 
often  an  affecting  form  to  a  thought,  and  fixes  it  in  the  mind. 
Saint  Paul  frequently  recurs  to  this  means  of  compelling,  in 
a  manner,  and  fixing  attention.  But  it  must  be  used  with 
care  when  it  is  introduced  in  the  pulpit.  The  preacher  speaks 
to  men  who  cannot  always  take  his  meaning  at  once,  and  he 
ought  to  be  on  his  guard,  lest  he  give  errors  instead  of  truths, 
to  the  simple. 

10.  Finally,  we  mention  vision^  or  oratorical  hypothesis^  a 
supposition  by  which,  in  order  to  impart  a  vivid  impression 

20 


458  OEATORICAL  HYPOTHESIS. 

to  the  soul,  we  give  presence  to  certain  objects.  It  is  one  of 
the  boldest  of  figures.  Bourdaloue  sometimes  employs  it ; 
but  pulpit  eloquence,  unquestionably,  very  seldom  rises  to 
the  height  of  this  passage  from  Massillon's  sermon,  on  the 
small  number  of  the  elect. 

"  I  confine  myself,  my  brethren,  to  you  who  are  here  assem- 
bled ;  I  speak  no  longer  of  others ;  I  regard  you  as  if  you 
were  the  only  persons  on  earth,  and  here  is  the  thought 
which  possesses  me  and  fills  me  with  dread.  I  imagine  that 
this  is  your  last  hour  and  the  end  of  the  world ;  that  the 
heavens  are  about  to  be  opened  over  your  heads,  and  Jesus 
Christ  to  appear  in  his  glory  in  the  naidst  of  this  temple,  and 
that  you  are  here  assembled  only  to  await  his  coming,  and  as 
trembling  criminals  on  whom  he  is  to  pronounce  either  a  par- 
don or  a  sentence  to  eternal  death  ;  for,  in  vain  have  you  flat- 
tered yourselves ;  you  will  die  such  as  you  are  now ;  all  those 
desires  of  a  change  which  have  deluded  you,  will  delude  you 
even  to  the  bed  of  death ;  this  is  the  experience  of  all  times ; 
all  you  will  then  find  new  in  yourselves,  will  perhaps  be  an 
account  somewhat  larger  than  that  which  you  would  to-day 
have  to  render ;  and  from  what  you  would  be,  if  you  were  to 
be  judged  this  moment,  you  might  almost  determine  what 
will  happen  to  you  at  your  departure  from  life. 

"  Now  I  demand  of  you,  and  I  do  this  impressed  with 
dread,  identifying  in  this  matter  my  lot  with  yours,  and  as- 
suming the  position  into  which  I  wish  you  to  enter ;  I  de- 
mand of  you  then  :  If  Jesus  Christ  should  appear  in  this  tem- 
ple, in  the  midst  of  this  assembly,  the  most  august  in  the 
world,  to  judge  us,  to  make  the  momentous  separation  between 
the  goats  and  the  sheep,  think  ye  that  the  greater  number  of 
those  who  are  present  would  be  placed  on  his  right  hand  ? 
Think  ye,  at  least,  that  the  numbers  would  be  equal  ?  Think 
ye  that  he  would  find  here  ten  righteous,  a  number  the  Lord 
at  another  time  could  not  find  in  five  entire  cities  ?    I  demand 


INTEEEOGATION.  459 

it  of  you,  you  know  it  not,  I  know  it  not  myself;  thou  alone, 
O  my  God,  knowest  those  who  are  thine.  But  if  we  know 
not  who  are  his,  we  know  at  least  that  simiers  are  not  of  this 
number.  Now  of  those  here  assembled,  who  are  believers  *? 
Titles  and  honors  are  to  pass  now  for  nothing ;  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Jesus  Christ  they  will  be  taken  away  fi^om.  you. 
Who  are  believers?  Many  sinners  have  no  wish  to  be 
converted  ;  still  more  would  be,  but  delay  their  conversion ; 
many  others  would  be  converted  only  to  relapse ;  lastly,  a 
great  number  think  they  have  no  need  of  conversion.  Re- 
move these  four  classes  of  sinners  from  this  holy  assembly ; 
for  removed  they  will  be  at  the  great  day ;  now  ye  righteous 
come  forth ;  where  are  ye  ?  remnant  of  Israel  pass  to  the 
right ;  wheat  of  Jesus  Christ,  separate  yourselves  from  this 
chaff  which  is  destined  to  the  fire.  O  God !  where  are  thine 
elect  1  and  what  remains  for  thy  portion  ?" 

We  come  now  to  figures  which  pass  the  limits  of  this 
purely  expository  style. 

1.  Interrogation,  which  is  often  used,  and  sometimes  ex- 
travagantly, is  a  form  of  affirmation ;  it  is  affirmation  en- 
forced by  a  sort  of  defiance,  and  so  distinct  from  ordinary 
interrogation,  that  it  is  pronounced  with  a  different  tone.  It 
may  be  employed  in  reasoning,  to  which  it  gives  a  more 
cogent  character ;  but  we  must  be  careful  in  doing  this,  for 
this  form  is  very  apt  to  become  monotonous.* 

*  In  a  celebrated  example  of  this  form  in  the  beginning  of  Cicero's 
first  oration  against  Catiline :  "  Quousque  tandem,  etc." 

On  the  abuse  of  interrogation  "we  cite  the  following  very  forcible 
passage  from  Robert  Hall's  review  of  Gisborne's  sermons : 

"  Another  blemish  which  strikes  us  in  this  work,  is  the  frequent 
use  of  interrogations,  introduced,  not  only  in  the  vrarm  and  impas- 
sioned parts,  where  they  are  graceful,  but  in  the  midst  of  argumen- 
tative discussion.  We  have  been  struck  with  the  prevalence  of  this 
practice  in  the  more  recent  works  of  clergymen,  beyond  those  of  any 
other  order  of  men.     With  Demosthenes,  we  know  interrogation 


460  EXCLAMATION. — APOSTROPHE. 

2.  Exclamation^  a  very  simple  figure,  is  very  apt  to  become 
commonplace.  It  is  the  ready  resource  of  frigid  minds. 
Buffon  charges  J.  J.  Rousseau  with  using  it  too  freely.  But 
this  common  figure  is  enhanced  by  genius,  and  still  more  by  a 
true  emotion.  It  is  always  beautiful  when  it  is  well  employed ; 
tliat  is  to  say, when  it  is  artless  and  flows  from  the  heart,  like 
that  which  the  remembrance  of  a  recent  affliction  drew 
from  the  soul  of  Bossuet :  "  O  disastrous  night,  O  dreadful 
night,  in  which,  like  a  peal  of  thunder,  suddenly  resounded 
this  surprising  news  :  Madame  is  dying,  Madame  is  dead  !"* 

Exclamation  is  enforced  by  apostrophe  and  prosopopoeia, 
figures  of  great  boldness  and  power.  Apostrophe  is  a  loud 
call  addressed  to  an  absent  person.  We  give  a  fine  example 
of  it  from  Massillon :  "  An  angel  must  descend  from  heaven 
to  comfort  him,  to  strengthen  him,  to  assist  him  to  bear  this 
invisible  cross,  as  Simon  the  Cyrenian  the  cross  of  calvary. 
Angels  of  heaven  !  this  heretofore  has  not  been  your  minis- 
try ;  you  have  heretofore  approached  Him  to  serve  and  to 
worship ;  now  He  is  debased  below  you."f 

was  a  very  frequent  figure ;  but  we  recollect,  at  the  same  time,  it 
was  chiefly  confined  to  the  more  vehement  parts  of  his  speeches,  in 
which,  like  the  eruptions  of  a  furnace,  he  broke  out  upon,  and  con- 
sumed his  opponents.  In  him  it  was  the  natural  expression  of 
triumphant  indignation;  after  he  had  subdued  and  laid  them  pros- 
trate by  the  force  of  his  arguments,  by  his  abrupt  and  terrible  inter- 
rogations, he  trampled  them  in  the  mire.  In  calm  and  dispassionate 
discussion,  the  frequent  use  of  questions  appears  to  us  unnatural ;  it 
discomposes  the  attention  by  a  sort  of  starting  and  irregular  motioi;, 
and  is  a  violation  of  dignity,  by  affecting  to  be  lively  where  it  is 
sufficient  praise  to  be  cogent  and  convincing.  In  a  word,  when,  ij;- 
stead  of  being  used  to  give  additional  vehemence  to  a  discourse,  they 
are  interspersed  in  a  series  of  arguments,  as  an  expedient  forenliveTi- 
ing  the  attention  and  varying  the  style,  they  have  an  air  of  undigni- 
fied  flippancy." — (Works,  vol.  iv.  London,  1831,  pp.  141,142.) — Tr. 

*  BossUKT,  Oraison  funehrc  cfHenriette  d' Angleterc. 

\  Massillon,  Sermon  sur  la  Passion  de  notre  Sei/jnetir.  We  recall, 
also,  Saurin's  celebrated  Apostrophe  to  Louis  XIV. 


PEOSOPOPCEIA.  461 

Prosopopoeia  approaches  apostrophe,  from  which  it  is  dis- 
tinguished by  this  only,  that  the  calls  are  addressed  to  inani- 
mate or  deceased  persons.  The  use  of  such  energetic  means 
can  be  justified  only  by  the  orator's  emotion  and  the  state 
into  which  his  discourse  has  put  his  hearers.  It  is  indispensa- 
ble that  in  the  use  of  it  he  be  sincere  ;  he  will  be  cold  and 
repulsive  if  he  feign  or  affect  to  be  moved.  It  is  of  the 
genius  of  eloquence  to  sympathize  with  the  hearers,  to  unite 
itself  with  their  impressions  while  it  takes  the  measure  of 
them,  and  to  say  what  they  are  able  to  bear.  Saurin  uses 
this  figure  quite  often  without,  however,  being  prodigal  of 
it :  "  Give  place,  give  place  to  our  calamities,  ye  catastrophes 
of  former  ages,  ye  mothers  whose  tragical  stories  astonish 
posterity,  who,  forced  by  the  horrors  of  famme  had  to  eat 
the  flesh  of  your  sons,  and  to  preserve  your  own  life  by  tak- 
ing that  of  those  who  had  received  life  from  you.  However 
dreadfiil  your  condition,  you  took  from  them  only  a  transient 
life,  and  by  a  single  stroke  you  saved  them  and  yourselves 
from  the  rigors  of  famine.  Here  all  follow  one  another  into 
the  same  abyss,  and  by  an  unheard  of  prodigy,  the  mother, 
the  mother  feeds,  if  we  must  so  speak,  on  the  very  soul  of 
her  son,  and  the  son  in  turn  devours  the  very  soul  of  his 
mother." 

Bossuet  abounds  in  prosopopoeia  :  "  Why  will  you  have 
prodigies  so  expensive  to  God  1  One  prodigy  only  do  I  now 
announce  to  the  world  :  O  heavens,  O  earth,  be  astonished 
at  this  new  prodigy  !  It  is  that  among  so  many  testimonials 
of  the  divine  love,  so  many  remain  unbelieving  and  insensi- 
ble." And  elswhere  :  "  We  give  thee  thanks,  O  death  !  for 
the  light  thou  hast  cast  on  our  ignorance.  Thou  alone  hast 
taught  us  our  baseness,  thou  alone  hast  made  us  acquainted 
with  our  dignity.  If  man  is  high  in  his  own  esteem,  thou 
art  able  to  abase  him  ;  if  a  man  is  too  self-abasing  thou  canst 
give  him  courage ;  and  to   moderate  all  his  thoughts,  thou 


462  DRAMATISM. 

teachest  him  these  two  truths  which  open  his  eyes  to  the  true 
knowledge  of  himself;  that  he  is  infinitely  mean  as  he  comes  to 
an  end  in  time,  and  infinitely  great  as  he  passes  into  eternity."* 

We  cite  one  example  more  from  Massillon  :  "  In  this 
degraded  condition,  Jesus  Christ  came  forth  from  the  pre- 
torium.  He  said  to  them,  behold  the  man,  Ecce  homo. 
Holy  kings  sprung  from  the  loins  of  David  !  inspired 
prophets  who  announce  him  to  the  world  ;  is  this  the  person- 
age whom  you  so  longed  to  see  %  behold  ye  then  the  man  ? 
Ecce  homo  ;  behold  ye  then  at  length  the  Deliverer  promised 
to  your  fathers  so  many  ages  ago  %  Behold  ye  the  Great 
Prophet  whom  Judea  was  to  give  to  the  earth  1  Behold  ye 
the  desire  of  all  nations,  the  expectation  of  the  whole  world, 
the  substance  of  your  types,  the  fulfilment  of  your  worship, 
the  hope  of  all  your  just  men,  the  consolation  of  the  syna-^ 
gogue,  the  glory  of  Israel,  the  light  and  salvation  of  all  na- 
tions *?  Ecce  homo^  behold  the  man  !  Recognize  ye  him  un- 
der these  marks  of  shame  f'f 

3.  Dramatisme,^  of  style,  which  consists  in  presenting  in 
action  what  may  be  presented  in  another  form, — didactic  or 
narrative.  Oratorical  discourse  is  always  a  drama ;  each 
word  of  the  preacher  is  a  question  to  which  the  hearer  re- 
sponds in  himself,  and  his  response  becomes  as  a  new  ques- 
tion, to  which  the  orator  replies.  There  is  then  a  close  con- 
ference in  every  oratorical  performance.  But  this  general 
character  may  become  more  marked  in  certain  places,  as  a 
lofty  region  may  be  strewed  with  eminences.  These  places 
are  as  so  many,  more  or  less,  intense  accents.  Dramatism  in 
discourse  has  place  whenever  a  distinction  of  persons  appears, 
which  is  not  required  by  the  nature  of  the   idea,  whenever 

*  BossuET,  Sermon  sur  la  m^ort  ct  Vivimortalite  de  Vame. 
f  Massillon,  Sermon  sur  la  passion  de  notre  Seigneur. 
X  We  retain  the  French  term.     There  is  no  word   in   English   by 
which  we  can  render  it. — Tr. 


DRAMATISM.  463 

respect  is  had  to  a  relation  of  persons  different  from  that 
which  exists  naturally  between  the  orator  and  the  hearer. 
This  figure  is  not  peculiar  to  eloquence ;  it  is  one  of  the  beau- 
ties of  poetry,  of  history,  of  all  animated  discourse.  Ac 
tions  show  men  ;  but  words  exhibit  actions.  "  Speak  that  1 
may  see  thee."  We  do  not  condemn  the  discourses  which 
the  ancient  historians  put  into  the  mouths  of  persons  to  ex- 
press externally  that  which  is  wthin.  The  Bible  makes  the 
prodigal  son  to  speak,  although  his  actions  speak  already  of 
themselves.  Dramatism,  we  add,  should  not  only  be  intro- 
duced in  large  portions  but  should  be  insinuated  into  the 
smallest  details  of  the  discourse.  "  Have  you  an  important 
secret,"  says  Bossuet,  "  pour  it  out  without  fear  into  this 
noble  heart ;  your  affair  becomes  his  by  confidence."* 

A  very  bold  form  of  dramatism  consists  in  putting  into 
the  mouth  of  God  the  instruction  which  the  orator  wishes  to 
give.  It  may  be  used,  but  not  without  the  greatest  rever- 
ence, moderation  and  caution.  The  prophets  often  make  God 
the  speaker,  and  pulpit  orators  have  followed  this  example. 
"  What  hinders  you  from  fulfilling  the  law  ?"  says  Bourda- 
loue ;  "  what  makes  you  despair  of  ever  fulfilling  it  is,  you 
say,  the  vicious  inclination  of  your  heart,  that  flesh  which  is 
conceived  in  sin,  and  which  wars  incessantly  against  the  spirit. 
But  suppose,  my  brethren,  Saint  Chrysostom  replies,  that  God 
should  address  you  in  these  terms :  O  man,  I  would  to-day 
take  away  this  heart  and  give  you  another ;  you  have  only  the 
power  of  a  man,  I  would  give  you  that  of  a  God.  It  is  not 
you  alone  who  are  to  act,  who  are  to  combat,  who  are  to  re- 
sist ;  I  myself  will  fight  within  you,  I  myself  will  overcome 
this  inclination  and  this  corrupt  flesh.  If  God  should  thus  ad- 
dress you,  if  he  should  make  you  this  offer,  would  you  still 
dare  to  complain  1  Now,  in  how  many  places  of  scripture 
has  he  not  made  you  this  promise  ?  Does  he  not  speak  to 
*  Bossuet,  Oraison  funehre  du  prince  de  Condc. 


464  DIALOGUE. 

you  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel :  I  will  take  from  you  this  hard 
hearty  and  give  you  a  new  heart,  a  heart  teachable  and  submis- 
sive to  my  laio  ?  What  then  do  ye  fear  1  That  God  will  not 
keep  his  ♦■word  1  That  were  to  distrust  his  faithfulness.  That 
notwithstanding  God's  word,  you  would  find  it  impossible  to 
observe  his  law.     But  that  were  to  distrust  his  power."* 

The  personification  of  the  whole  auditory  by  the  preacher, 
is  another  form  of  dramatism.  We  have  an  example  of  it 
in  the  following  passage  from  Saurin,  which  has  been  already 
cited  in  part :  "  When  the  dove,  out  of  the  ark,  found  the 
winds  unchained,  the  overflowing  waters,  the  flood-gates  of 
heaven  open,  the  world  buried  beneath  the  waves,  she  sought 
refuge  in  the  ark.  But  when  she  found  plains  and  fields,  she 
stayed  in  them.  My  soul,  see  the  image  of  thyself  When 
the  world  presents  to  thee  prosperity,  honor,  wealth,  thou 
hearest  the  voice  of  the  enchanter,  and  suflerest  thyself  to  be 
taken  in  its  charms.  But  when  thou  findest  in  the  world  only 
poverty,  contempt,  misery,  thou  turnest  thine  eyes  upward  to 
seek  happiness  in  thy  centre.  Now,  notwithstanding  the  disap- 
pointments with  which  our  life  is  accompanied,  it  is  exceedingly 
painful  to  us  to  tear  ourselves  away  from  it.  What  would  it  be, 
then,  if  everything  prospered  here  according  to  our  wishes. "f 

The  most  comijlete  form  of  dramatism  is  dialogue.  De- 
mosthenes often  employs  it ;  but  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
examples  of  it  that  can  be  produced,  is  this  passage  from 
Saurin :  "  But  regarding  this  whole  text  as  applicable  to  you, 
my  brethren,  you  are  permitted  to-day  to  pour  out  your  com- 
plaints freely,  and  to  declare  before  the  face  of  heaven  and 
of  earth,  the  evils  God  has  done  you.  My  people,  what  have 
J  done  ?  Ah,  Lord,  what  things  hast  thou  done  to  us.  Ways 
of  Zion  covered  with  mourning,  desolate  gates  of  Jerusalem, 

*  BouRDALOUE,  Scrmon  sar  la  sagesse  et  la  douceur  de  la  loi  chretienne. 
f  Sauiun,  Sermon  sur  le  jeune  cilibrc  a  I'ouverture  de  la  campayne  do 


PKAYER. — ^VARIETY  465 

lamenting  priests,  wailing  virgins,  prostrate  sanctuaries,  des- 
erts peopled  with  fugitives,  members  of  Christ  wandering 
over  the  face  of  the  world,  children  torn  from  their  fathers, 
prisons  filled  with  confessors,  galleys  crowded  with  martyrs, 
the  blood  of  our  countrymen  poured  out  like  water,  dead 
bodies  venerable  as  having  witnessed  for  religion,  but  now  cast 
out  as  refuse,  and  given  for  food  to  the  beasts  of  the  field  and 
the  fowls  of  heaven,  ruins  of  our  temples,  dust,  ashes,  sad  re- 
mains of  houses  consecrated  to  God,  fires,  wheels,  gibbets, 
punishments  till  our  day  unheard  of,  answer  and  witness  here 
against  the  Lord."* 

We  must  finally  mention  prayer^  as  contributing  to  move- 
ment in  discourse,  although  the  preacher,  certainly,  should 
not  allow  himself  to  use  it  simply  as  an  instrument  of  orato- 
ry. But  it  is  very  impressive  when  used  appropriately.  In 
certain  solemn  moments,  crises  of  discourse,  recomposing  the 
heart  in  God  has  great  power  and  produces  great  effect.  We 
should  never  forget,  however,  with  what  seriousness  and  sin- 
cerity this  means  should  be  employed. 

It  remains  for  us  to  speak  of  certain  qualities  of  style 
which  relate  alike  to  imagery  and  movement.  We  mention 
first,  variety : 

Sans  cesse  en  ecrivant  variez  vos  discours. 

Un  style  trop  egal  et  toujourauniforme 

En  vain  brille  h.  nos  yeux,  il  faut  qu'il  nous  endorme. 

On  lit  pen  ces  auteurs,  nes  pour  nous  ennuyer, 

Qui  toujours  sur  un  ton  semblent  psalmodier.* 

*  Saurin,  Sermon  sur  le  jeune  celebre  a  Vouverture  de  la  campagne  de 
I'JOe.     Tome  viii.,  p.  112,  nouvelle  edition. 
f  BoELEAU,  BArt  Foetique,  chant  i. 

"  In  writing  strive  to  vary  your  discourse. 
A  style  too  equal  and  always  the  same, 
Dazzles  in  vain.     We  can  but  fall  asleep 
Few  read  those  authors,  born  to  tire  us, 
Who  always  seem  to  sound  the  self-same  note." — ^Tr. 
20* 


4:Q6  VAEIETY. 

I  would  not  regard  the  subject  in  this  view  only.  Variety- 
has  a  close  connection  with  truth,  with  propriety,  with  pre- 
cision. A  style  possessing  these  three  qualities,  will  thereby 
be  made  various ;  as  no  one  thing  is  absolutely  like  any 
other,  if  we  express  a  thing  just  as  it  is,  we  shall  vary  our 
words  and  phrases ;  variety  arises  from  the  essence  of  the 
things  when  the  things  themselves  are  different. 

The  constant  recurrence  of  the  same  forms  and  phrases  is 
owing  ordinarily  to  a  crude  or  at  least  imperfect  analysis  of 
thought.  If  we  would  be,  not  nice  or  subtile,  but  simply 
true,  we  must  have  distinguished  well,  analyzed  well,  inward- 
ly at  least.  Too  many  authors  are  accustomed  to  do  what 
is  done  in  printing,  when  words  and  even  whole  sentences, 
which  it  is  foreseen  there  will  be  occasion  to  use,  are  kept 
standing  in  type.  A  number  of  clauses  or  oft-cited  passages 
are  in  circulation  which  each  applies  to  his  present  thought, 
even  though  it  does  not  correspond  to  it  perfectly.  Writers 
of  strongly  marked  individuality  are  distinguished  by  this, 
that  while  they  are  different  from  themselves  in  different 
places,  they  are  to  be  recognized  in  almost  every  line.  Bos- 
suet  for  example.  He  has  no  standing  phrases,  no  frequent 
returns  of  the  same  forms  of  expression,  no  mannerism,  no 
refrains. 

Thorough  analysis  of  thought  then  is  the  first,  it  is  not  the 
only  condition  of  variety.  Not  only  the  object  itself,  but 
the  instrument,  that  is  language,  must  have  been  studied. 
And  it  is  to  be  remembered,  that  the  study  of  the  instrument 
or  the  forces  of  language,  favors  the  study  of  the  object, 
since  in  seeking  the  sign-  for  an  idea  we  seek  the  idea  itself. 
We  generally  study  language  too  little  ;  we  know  it  only  in 
gross ;  we  do  not  explore  its  resources  ;  we  do  not  endeavor 
to  make  it  productive ;  we  leave  those  who  have  the  instinct, 
the  living  and  inward  sense  of  language,  to  enjoy  their  ad- 
vantage ;  we  have  no  care  to  gain  by  study,  what  with  less 


ELEGANCE.  467 

of  natural  talent,  we  may  acquire  by  that  means.  Those 
who  give  so  little  attention  to  language,  have  but  a  poor 
vocabulary,  are  capable  of  but  few  constructions ;  it  is  to 
others  that  language  unfolds  its  affluence. 

Finally,  with  all  our  diligence,  w.e  must  keep  up  a  constant 
watch,  for  every  one  has  his  favorite  expressions  and  forms 
into  which  he  too  readily  falls.  It  is  only  writers  of  the  sec- 
ond order  that  commit  this  fault.  We  do  not  meet  with  it 
in  the  masters. 

Variety  of  expression,  of  construction,  and  of  movement, 
is  of  special  importance  in  didactic  works,  and  above  all  in 
pulpit  discourse. 

Elegance. — Variety  of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  is  one  of 
the  elements,  or,  at  least,  one  of  the  conditions  of  elegance ; 
still  we  thought  it  ought  to  be  considered  separately,  as  it  is 
an  excellence  which  may  exist  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
apart  from  elegance,  and  be  the  object  of  distinct  atten- 
tion. 

The  meaning  of  the  word  elegance^  m  the  language  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  appears  from  Boileau's  use  of  it,  in  two 
well-known  passages  of  the  Art  of  Poetry : 

line  elegante  idylle.* 

De  Marot  I'elegante  badinage,  f 


It  is  the  avoidance  of  what  is  common  and  flat,  the  most 
natural  danger  in  pastoral  and  playful  composition.  Every- 
where as  well  as  in  idylls,  it  chooses  forms  which  are  re- 
mote at  once  from  the  trivial  and  the  subtile,  without  betray- 
ing the  slightest  effort.  It  is  in  style  what  refinement  is  in 
manners. 

But  its  avoidance  of  the  vulgar  and  the  trivial  is  not  con- 
fined to  what  offends  moral  or   social  propriety,  it  also  ex- 

*  Chant,  ii.     "An  elegant  idyll." — Tr. 

\  Chant,  i.     "  The  elegant  pleasantry  of  Marot."— Tr. 


468  ELEGANCE. 

tends  to  whatever  violates  the  proprieties  of  wit,  for  that  also 
has  its  proprieties.  Wit  is  opposed  to  whatever  is  coarse, 
clumsy,  awkward,  too  full  or  too  empty  of  meaning.*  It 
rejects  repetitions,  uniformity,  embarrassed  or  heavy  forms 
of  expression,  nice  discrimination  and  too  formal  logic.  It 
delights  in  freedom  and  agility,  in  a  simple  and  easy  con- 
ciseness ;  in  delicately  appropriate  expressions ;  in  ingenious 
turns  which  seem  only  fortunate  hits  ;  a  style  which  in  these 
respects  gratifies  wit,  is  an  elegant  style. 

The  elements  of  elegance  often  escape  us,  and  it  has  been 
said  to  be  wholly  negative  ;  but  it  has  positive  ingredients. 
Elegance  implies  an  aptitude  in  multiplying  the  relation  of 
ideas,  in  combining,  in  condensing ;  it  not  only  polishes,  it 
cuts  the  diamond.  It  does  not  limit  itself  to  relations  df  the 
greatest  importance  or  necessity ;  it  seizes  subordinate  re- 
lations, bearings  of  things  which  are  little  observed ;  of 
course  it  possesses  imagination,  or  at  least  wit ;  in  an  elegant 
style  there  is  always  wit,  though  there  may  be  none  in 
thought,  for  elegance  consists  of  the  same  ideas  which  give 
us  wit.f     We  may  see  this  in  a  few  examples  : 

"  In  each  genus  the  first  species  bears  away  all  our  praises 
and  the  secondary  species  are  left  to  the  contempt  which 
arises  from  comparison  with  them."| 

"  The  M^ork  obtained  a  success  in  all  Europe,  which  ma- 
lignity put  to  the  disadvantage  of  Louis  XIV.  "§ 

*  There  is  a  coarse  wit,  so  called ;  but  wit  violates  its  law  when  it 
is  not  elegant.  "The  definition  of  wit,"  says  Dryden,  "is  only  this, 
that  it  is  a  propriety  of  thought  and  words;  or,  in  other  words, 
thoughts  and  terms  elegantly  adapted  to  the  subject."  Buffoonery 
is  not  wit  ;  Locke  somewhere  suggests  that  buffoonery  is  to  wit 
what  pedantry  is  to  learning. — Tr. 

f  Yet,  Montesquieu  has  much  wit  and  is  not  elegant. 

X  BUFFON. 

§  ViLLEMAIN. 


ELEGANCE.  469 

"  The  bishop  of  Antioch  strove  to  unite  to  Christian  so- 
ciety the  hope  of  so  fine  a  genius."* 

Elegance  appears  not  only  in  a  separate  sentence,  but  also 
in  connected  sentences,  in  the  texture  of  the  diction  ;  simple 
sentences,  from  the  manner  of  their  succession  and  combina- 
tion, may  form  an  elegant  whole.  Here  we  have  pleasure  in 
citing  Massillon  :  "  It  is  a  light  thing,  my  brethren,  that  al- 
most the  only  work  of  the  great  and  powerful  should  be  the 
corruption  of  our  times ;  ages  to  come  also  will  perhaps  owe 
to  you  a  part  of  their  licentiousness  and  disorder.  Those 
profane  poems  which,  but  for  you,  would  not  have  seen  the 
light,  will  also  corrupt  the  hearts  of  men  in  the  ages  which 
are  to  succeed  you  ;  those  pernicious  authors  whom  you 
honor  with  yom*  patronage  will  pass  into  the  hands  of  your 
offspring,  and  with  the  fatal  poison  which  they  carry  in  them, 
and  which  they  will  communicate  from  age  to  age,  your 
crimes  will  be  multiplying  ;  your  very  passions,  immortalized 
by  history,  after  scandalizing  your  own  age,  will  do  the  same 
to  ages  following ;  others,  by  reading  the  story  of  your  ex- 
cesses, will  be  led  to  imitate  you  after  your  death  ;  they  will 
learn  new  lessons  of  crime  from  the  recital  of  your  adven- 
tures ;  and  your  irregularities  will  not  die  with  you.  .  . 
Such  is  the  consequence  of  the  vices  and  passions  of  the 
great  and  the  powerful.  They  live  not  for  their  own  age 
only ;  they  live  for  ages  to  come,  and  there  is  no  limit  to  the 
duration  of  their  scandal  except  that  of  their  memory."| 

Elegance  is  not  beauty,  but  it  takes  the  place  in  style 
which  tourmire^  carriage,  and  dress  have  in  the  figure  of  a 
woman  of  tixshion.  Elegance  is  seen  to  advantage  from  the 
mechanism  of  verse,  which  makes  it  more  apparent  by  the 
two-fold  exactness  of  rhythm  and  thought,  as  in  Racine. 

Elegance  is  apt  to  be  cold,  because  it  is  less  the  effect  of 

*  ViLLEMAIX. 

f  Massillon,  Petit  Careme. 


470  ELEGANCE. 

imagination  which  paints  and  colors,  than  of  wit  which  sketches 
and  engraves,  (otherwise  would  geometry  itself  ever  have 
had  its  elegant  demonstrations  to  boast  of?)  and  because  it  is 
only  to  a  certain  extent  that  it  accords  with  vivid  emotion. 
For  when  the  heart  is  moved,  too  much  elegance  is  not  tlie 
supplement  but  the  contrary  of  beauty.  Should  we  be 
pleased  to  see  a  person  in  a  transport  of  grief,  watching  lest 
his  gestures  should  derange  his  toilette,  or  his  tears  wash  oif 
his  paint  1 

Neither  does  it  accord  with  gravity  beyond  a  certain  point. 
Elegance  is  social,  it  is  mundane.  It  springs  from  the  refine- 
ment of  society,  and  all  its  graces  point  to  the  leisure  and 
luxuries  of  polished  life. 

There  is,  however,  even  in  grave  and  pathetic  subjects,  a 
degree  of  elegance  to  which  style  should  attain ;  a  chaste  ele- 
gance scarcely  to  be  observed,  scarcely  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  natural,  the  just,  the  concise  in  style ;  these  quali- 
ties appear  and  assert  themselves,  alone,  it  is  not  until  after- 
wards that  elegance  is  recognized.  The  preacher  in  order  to 
be  elegant,  must  have  had  recourse  to  practice,  and  another 
and  much  greater  effort  will  be  necessary  not  to  appear  so ; 
elegance  which  announces  itself,  elegance  which  shows  itself, 
is  miskilful  and  unhappy ;  but  chaste  elegance  is  appropriate 
to  the  pulpit. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  MATERIAL  PART  OF  DISCOURSE,    OR  SOUND. 

If  it  is  not  right  for  us  to  flatter  the  ear,  we  ought  at  least  to 
accommodate  it,  and  our  instructions  in  this  chapter  have  respect 
only  to  this  object. 

It  would  doubtless  scarcely  be  proper  to  speak  of  harmony 


EUPHONY.  471 

or  even  of  the  other  qualities  of  style,  if  the  attention  to  the 
subject  required  of  the  preacher  were  too  absorbing,  or  such  as 
might  withdraw  him  from  more  important  labors  ;  but  art  is 
not  or  ought  not  to  continue  to  be  a  severe  and  minute  labor ; 
it  should  become  a  second  nature.  Habit  makes  that  easy 
which  was  difficult  at  first ;  the  movement  on  the  keys  of  the 
organ  becomes  at  length  a  real  play^  and  in  itself,  perhaps,  is 
less  difficult  than  that  of  the  eye  over  the  note-book. 

Art  would  not  be  art  if  it  did  not  become  nature.  Inspir- 
ation is  possible  only  when  all  the  faculties  contribute  to  it 
without  interfering  with  one  another,  and  it  is  to  this  equi- 
librium of  the  faculties  that  we  must  attain.  All  art  unques- 
tionably requires  instruction,  and  this  is  as  true  of  the  art  of 
writing  as  of  other  arts ;  but  when  once  the  habit  is  acquired, 
and  art  becomes  nature,  it  will  be  as  difficult  to  write  ill,  as 
it  is  to  write  well  without  it. 

Harmony  comprises  three  things,  euphony^  number,  and  im- 
itative harmony.  This  last  belongs  to  poetic  language,  and 
without  desiring  to  exclude  it  from  the  pulpit,  we  should  ex- 
clude at  least  the  pursuit  of  it.  But  we  must  say  something 
concerning  euphony  and  number. 

Euphony  is  the  combination  of  agreeable,  and  the  exclu-  t 
sion  of  discordant  sounds.     The  latter  point,  the  care  to  avoid 
cacophony,  is  doubtless  essential. 

Fuyez  des  mauvais  sons  le  concours  odieux.* 
I  do  not  add : 

Le  vers  le  mieux  rempli,  la  plus  noble  pensee, 
Ne  pent  plaire  a  I'esprit  quand  oreille  est  blesse.f 


*  BoiLEAU,  L'Art  Poetique,  chant  i. 

"  Shun  the  hateful  concourse  of  bad  sounds." — Tr. 
t  Ibid. 

"The  most  finished  verse,  the  most  noble  thought, 
The  mind  cannot  please  if  the  ear  be  pained." — Tr. 


472  NUMBEE. 

I  would  not  be  so  nice,  but  an  offended  ear  turns  away  the 
mind. 

Doubtless  there  is  a  harmony  of  words  which  becomes  a 
kind  of  music,  which  intoxicates  the  hearer ;  and  we  must 
guard  against  exciting  or  cherishing  frivolity,  by  effemi- 
nacy, a  sort  of  epicurism  of  style ;  but  let  us  also  avoid  falling 
into  the  contrary  excess.  Cacophony  is  less  hurtful  in  in- 
tensely accentuated  and  agitating  language,  in  which  prosody 
makes  amends  for  the  want  of  euphony ;  but  the  French  wants 
this  advantage ;  it  is  dull,  nasal,  abounds  in  mute  e's,  and 
should  fear  more  than  other  languages,  the  superbissimum 
aurium  judicium  of  which  Cicero  speaks.  We  should  there- 
fore do  wrong  to  give  no  thought  to  euphony,  for  it  would 
seem  to  be  no  less  mihappy  to  disparage  ideas  by  bad  sounds 
than  by  agreeable  ones. 

Number  is  quite  as  important ;  a  sentence  which  to  the 
understanding  is  a  unit,  should  be  one  to  the  ear  ;  but  unity 
is  perceptible  only  through  plurality.  We  perceive  no 
longer  a  first,  where  we  do  not  perceive  a  second.  It  is 
with  a  sentence  as  with  verses,  in  which  musical  unity  is 
perceived  only  from  the  divisions  or  pauses.  There  are 
spaces,  pauses,  numbers  or  number,  in  prose  as  well  as  in 
poetry.  But  the  difference  between  them  is,  that  in  prose 
any  number  of  syllables  is  proper,  whether  of  an  entire  sen- 
tence or  any  one  of  its  parts,  while  verse  restricts  itself 
from  the  outset  to  certain  numbers  and  divisions,  which 
render  the  musical  intent  more  apparent,  and  these  it  verifies 
l)y  means  of  rhyme.  Poetry  sings,  prose  does  not  exactly 
sing,  it  speaks  ;  but  the  ear  requires  to  be  pleased  ;  and  this 
is  done  by  pauses  at  the  proper  places,  by  phrases  of  the  re- 
quisite length,  and  by  agreeable  cadences,  now  loud,  now 
low,  now  strong,  now  feeble ;  cadences  corresponding  to 
rhyme  in  verse.* 

*  See  the  description  of  the  Swan,  by  Buffon,  in  Chrestomathie 
Fran^aise,  tome  i.,  p.  172,  troisieme  edition. 


NUMBER.  473 

The  first  object  is  not  to  amuse  the  ear  ;  it  is  to  spare  the 
hearer  the  painful  impression  which  he  feels  when  he  per- 
ceives that  the  orator  is  out  of  breath ;  for  he  involuntarily 
sympathizes  with  him,  measures  the  compass  of  his  voice, 
and  knows  when  he  needs  rest.  "  A  discourse,"  says 
Gaichies,  "  is  not  pronounced  with  one  breath ;  pauses  enable 
us  to  take  breath  again,  and  aid  the  voice  by  grateful  variety ; 
thus  the  necessary  introduces  the  agreeable."  Cicero  had 
said  before :  "  The  stops  and  divisions  of  periods  were  first 
intix)duced  for  recovering  the  breath  and  opening  the  lungs  ; 
and  yet  in  their  own  nature  they  are  so  musical,  that  though 
one's  lungs  were  inexhaustible,  yet  we  should  not  wish  for 
continuity  of  style  Avithout  any  stops.  Such  a  sympathy 
exists  between  what  is  agreeable  to  our  ears,  and  what  is  not 
only  possible  but  easy  for  our  lungs."* 

Even  the  unpractised  hearer  perceives  when  propriety  is 
violated,  when  proportion  is  wanting  ;  the  discerning  almost 
distinguish  the  imperfect  sound  of  a  syllable. 

By  attending  to  this  matter,  we  may  afford  assistance  in 
understanding  and  retaining  the  discourse  ;  number  supports 
the  voice  and  favors  hearing  in  a  temple.  Let  us  not  think 
that  there  is  any  artifice  unworthy  of  the  gravity  of  the 
pulpit,  in  giving  this  subject  our  attention.  We  ought, 
doubtless,  to  sacrifice  number  to  thought ; 

Le  nombre  est  un  esclave  et  ne  doit  qn'obeirrf 

But  it  may  obey  always ;  the  resources  of  language  are  so 
numerous,  that  the  sacrifice  of  thought  is  never  necessary ; 
and  if  good  poets  have  used  so  much  liberty  and  propriety 

*  CiOERO,  De  Oratore,  lib.  iii.,  cap.  xlvi.  (London  Translation, 
1808.) 

f  BoiLEAu  says  this  of  Rhyme,  (Ed. :)  "  N^umber  is  a  slave,  and 
should  only  obey." — Tr. 


474  NUMBER. 

under  the  constraint  of  rhyme,  surely  the  orator  may  much 
more  do  this  under  the  easier  constraint  of  number.  Number 
must  seem  to  present  itself  spontaneously ;  after  a  period  of 
practice  the  appearance  becomes  reality  :  Ut  numerics  noii 
quaesitus,  sed  ipse  secutus  esse  videatui%  says  Cicero.*  We 
cannot,  however,  allow  ourselves  what  was  not  only  allowed  . 
but  required  in  the  Grecian  and  even  Roman  orators  before 
an  artistic  people. 

Number  should  not  be  confounded  with  the  introduction 
of  unusual  phrases  into  a  discourse,  which  form  verses  and 
have  the  same  kind  of  measure.  Paul  Louis  Courrier  often  has 
such  phrases,  and  they  are  set  oif,  by  elegies  with  which 
we  have  no  sympathy.  It  is  a  sort  of  dissonance,  which 
gives  to  prose  a  somewhat  equivocal  and  indeterminate 
character ;  something  between  singing  and  speaking  ;  and 
besides,  there  is  something  of  affectation  and  puerility  in 
bemg  occupied  in  such  work. 

Number  is  not  peculiar  to  the  periodic  style ;  it  should 
have  place  in  any  style  in  which  one  writes.  It  is,  however, 
in  the  involutions  of  the  oratorical  period,  that  number  appears 
to  the  most  advantage  ;  here  it  is  that  we  look  for  the  numer- 
ous style.  We  should  carefully  avoid  the  periodic  style,  if 
the  style  called  numerous^  would  not  suit  our  discourse.  It  is 
not  the  ear  only  that  suggests  the  periodic  style,  neither  does 
it,  first  of  all,  relate  to  the  ear.  It  delights  in  assembling 
around  one  and  the  same  thought,  as  around  a  trunk,  a  certain 
number  of  thoughts,  which  spontaneously  bloom,  and  form 
above  the  principal  idea,  as  it  were,  a  tufted  summit.  This  style 
imparts  the  idea  of  calmness,  of  power  and  dignity  ;  the  period 
is  also  suited  to  the  style  which  inspires  awe  and  solemnity. 
But  it  is  not  a  style  to  be  labored  at,  as  a  painter  labors  accord- 
ing to  his  particular  talent,  at  a  landscape  or  a  portrait ;  it  is  a 
form  wliich  style  should  assume  from  the  movement  of  thought, 
*  CioERO,  Oratbr,  cap.  Ixv. 


NUMBER.  475 

and  it  should  beware  of  embarrassing   itself  with  long   sen- 
tences ;  they  are  not  suited  to  it. 

I  say  the  same  of  the  laconic  style.  We  should  habituate 
ourselves  to  neither.  The  laconic  style  has  precision  and  vi- 
vacity ;  sometimes  it  has  authority,  and  is  very  proper  in  its 
place.  Pomp  and  grandeur  belong  to  the  periodic  style.  It 
sounds  well;  but  it  may  relax  the  vigor  of  thought,  and 
is  unfavorable  to  emotion.  We  should  then  intermingle 
these  two  styles,  and  use  them  alternately.  Bossuet  here, 
is  to  be  preferred  before  Flechier,  and  is  an  excellent  model 
well  worthy  to  be  studied.  Though  we  may  recognize  him 
in  almost  every  line,  he  is  always  different  from  himself. 
But  Massillon  surpasses  all  others  in  the  happy  mixture  of 
the  laconic  and  the  periodic  style. 


7^ 


APPENDIX. 


A  Discourse  delivered  by  M.  Vinet,  at  his  Installation  as 
Professor  of  Practical  Theology  in  the  Academy  of 
Lausanne,  November  1st,  1837. 

Honorable  Counsellor  of  State,  Vice-President  and  Mem- 
bers of  the  Council  of  Public  Instruction,  Rector  and  Mem- 
bers of  the  Academy,  Regents  and  Instructors  of  the  Acade- 
mical College,  Students  of  this  Academy,  Honored  hearers 
of  every  order, — 

Sirs, — 

The  discourses  we  have  just  heard*  suffice  to  grace  this 
solemnity  and  to  allay  the  anxiety  which  it  naturally  causes 
in  me ;  you  have  been  gratified  and  my  heart  has  been  en- 
couraged ;  and  if  this  service  had  no  other  object  it  might 
now  properly  be  brought  to  a  close ;  but  the  law  which  im- 
poses on  me  the  difficult  task  of  following  two  orators  so 
worthy  of  commanding  your  attention,  doubtless  has  its  rea- 
son, and  does  not  merely  aim  at  meeting  a  conventional  pro- 
priety. He  who  occupies  the  post  of  an  instructor  in  our 
Academy,  does  not  discharge  his  important  functions  before 
the  public  ;  yet  he  is  responsible  to  the  public,  he  in  a  man- 

*  Alluding  to  the  address  of  M.  Jaquet,  President  of  the  Council 
of  State,  who  presided  on  the  occasion,  and  to  that  of  M.  J.  J.  Porchat, 
Rector  of  the  Academy. 


478  INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE. 

ner  belongs  to  it,  he  is  its  man,  and  as  such  it  is  fitting  that 
once  at  least,  on  entering  upon  his  charge,  he  should  appear 
before  it  to  do  honor  to  his  sureties,  to  those,  I  mean  to  say, 
who  have  appointed  him,  those  first  delegates  of  the  public 
who  have  delegated  him,  and  publicly  installed  him.  It  is 
fitting  at  least  that  at  their  risk  and  his  own,  he  should  make 
himself  known.  Especially  is  it  fitting  that  when  a  serious 
mission  is  to  be  undertaken,  every  one  should  know  in 
what  spirit  it  is  to  be  fulfilled.  It  is  under  this  last  impress- 
ion that  I  regard  the  obligation  which  I  am  now  to  meet. 
Even  without  designing  to  do  so  I  should  meet  this  obliga- 
tion, by  what  I  am  now  to  say.  Desirous  chiefly  to  show, 
at  my  entrance,  what  I  think  and  what  I  am,  though  I  should 
see  it  for  my  interest  to  do  otherwise,  though  ignorant,  as  a 
new-comer,  as  to  what  it  is  expedient  I  should  say,  what  dis- 
guise and  what  suppress,  on  whatever  subject  I  might  speak, 
I  could  not  but  show  myself  openly,  with  whatever  there  may 
be  in  me,  good  or  bad.  And  as  an  affected  reserve  would 
betray  me  more  than  my  words,  I  shall  approach  at  once 
the  questions  relating  immediately  to  the  office  which  has 
been  assigned  to  me.  Only  may  I  have  grace  from  Him 
whose  good  Providence  to-day  has  made  frankness  a  demand 
of  my  position  and  of  good  sense,  to  add  truth  to  frankness, 
that  what  I  speak,  I  may  speak  according  to  the  oracles  of 
God,  and  that  my  discourse  may  communicate  grace  to  my 
hearers. 

Called  to  be  henceforth  occupied  with  the  subject  of  preach- 
ing, that  chief  lever  of  the  evangelical  ministry,  I  have  not 
been  able  to  regard  it  in  a  purely  abstract  view ;  it  has  not 
presented  itself  to  me  simply  as  an  art,  of  which  I  am  to  in- 
quire into  the  principles  and  trace  the  theory,  but  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  in  the  regulation  of  which  I  am  to  take  part,  as  a 
christian  work  in  which  I  am  to  be  employed  with  others ; 


INSTALLATION   DISCOURSE.  479 

and  I  could  not  but  regard  it  at  the  stand-point  of  a  certain 
time,  our  own,  and  of  a  certain  place,  our  country.  And  at 
the  outset  a  two-fold  question  claimed  from  me  an  exact  so- 
lution. How  have  the  circumstances  of  time  and  place  mod- 
ified preaching  ;  and  what  influence  has  preaching  had  in  its 
turn  on  that  state  of  things  which  has  modified  it  ? 

I  could  satisfy  myself  as  to  this  question  before  an  exami- 
nation of  facts  ;  for  I  could  not  be  doubtful  either  as  to  their 
action  or  reaction  ;  of  their  nature  alone  might  I  be  ignorant. 
Every  epoch  has  its  characteristics,  more  or  less  prominent, 
and  if  the  influence  of  these  is  felt  in  private  society,  in 
individual  life,  and  even  in  the  most  hidden  life,  how 
could  a  public  fact  like  that  of  preaching  be  unaffected 
by  it,  especially  in  a  country  in  which  religion  is  one 
of  the  interests,  and,  in  some  sort,  a  property  of  the 
State  *?  It  is  true  that  as  religion  has  its  rise  in  no  human 
fact,  and  claims,  by  its  nature,  ascendency  over  everything, 
its  principle  seems  to  withdraw  it  from  that  mysterious  at- 
traction which  draws  all  the  concerns  of  an  epoch  within  the 
orbit  of  an  idea  or  a  passion ;  but  in  man,  religion  becomes 
human,  he  transports  it  into  his  own  sphere,  using,  for  the 
purpose  of  drawing  it  to  himself,  the  chain  which  fastens  him 
to  it.  Incorruptible  in  itself,  its  institutions  and  its  character- 
istics become  more  or  less  changed  in  the  atmosphere  of  hu- 
man passions ;  the  dust  of  this  world  adheres,  in  some  meas- 
ure, to  its  august  feet ;  in  a  word,  whatever  springs  from  re- 
ligion, whatever  is  connected  with  religion,  and,  above  all, 
preaching,  which  is  its  most  lively  representation,  receives, 
unavoidably,  the  impress  of  times  and  places. 

Every  epoch  has  its  characteristics  ;  but  every  one  has 
not  as  its  signet,  its  proper  name,  a  mighty  fact,  which  strikes 
the  least  attentive  observer ;  a  fact,  which  materializing  it- 


m 


480  INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE. 

self  in  its  effects,  becomes,  by  means  of  its  external  manifes- 
tations, familiar  to  all,  and  receives  from  all  a  popular  ap- 
pellation ;  a  fact,  in  short,  about  which  there  may  indeed  be 
different  opinions,  but  which  no  one  thinks  of  denying.  Such 
an  impress  is  not  wanting  to  our  epoch  ;  and  the  fact,  which, 
among  others,  characterizes  it,  is  that  which  is  conventionally 
termed  the  religious  movement. 

The  very  name  of  this  fact  would  seem  to  exclude  it  from 
the  number  of  those  of  which  I  have  spoken.  It  is  religious, 
and  its  influence  on  religion  may  seem  to  be  a  spontaneous  evo- 
lution of  religion  itself.  It  is  not  so,  however.  A  religious 
fact  is  not  religion.  Brought  to  pass  by  means  of  man,  it  is  a 
human  fact,  a  fact  at  least  of  a  mixed  nature,  in  which  we  per- 
ceive both  the  presence  of  the  divine  idea  and  the  influence  of 
humanity.  But,  be  this  as  it  may,  the  confusion,  if  there  be 
any,  has  not  reached  the  question  which  we  have  presented,  and 
nothing  in  reason  is  more  legitimate  than  to  ask  :  What  has 
been  the  bearing  of  the  religious  movement  on  preaching,  and 
how,  in  turn,  has  preaching  reacted  on  the  religious  movement  ? 

It  is  incontrovertible  that  a  movement  has  taken  place  in 
the  sphere  of  religious  things.  The  complaints  of  some, 
the  congratulations  of  others,  the  interest  of  all,  bear  wit- 
ness to  this  movement ;  and  as  we  are  among  those  who 
are  thankful  for  it,  the  question  we  have  brought  forward  re- 
solves itself  naturally  into  this :  What  has  preaching  received 
from  the  religious  movement,  and  what  in  return  can  preach- 
ing give  to  it  1 

Ought  we  here  to  inquire  for  the  date,  to  trace  the  history, 
to  determine  the  extent,  to  appreciate  the  nature,  to  conjec- 
ture the  future  of  a  fact  at  once  so  serious,  so  vast  and  so 
delicate  1  This  task  perhaps  does  not  belong  to  us,  and  in  its 
full  extent  transcends  the  limits  of  our  subject.     Still  our 


INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE.  481 

subject  itself  requires  the  examination  of  certain  parts  of  it. 
The  religious  movement,  in  its  most  essential  elements,  has 
had  influence  on  preaching.  These  elements  ought  to  be 
ascertained  and  expressed. 

What  impartial  and  thoughtful  observers  have  called  a  re- 
ligious movement,  has  received  from  another  class  a  name 
which  embraces  a  complete  judgment.  This  movement  with 
them  is  an  awakening.  We  enter  fully  into  their  meaning 
when  in  our  turn  we  define  it  a  reaching  forth  of  Christianity 
towards  its  source,  towards  a  more  comprehensive  view  of 
the  evangelical  system,  towards  a  more  exact  and  extensive 
application  of  christian  principles  to  human  life.  But  let  it 
not  be  thought  that  we  ascribe  to  this  movement,  regarded  in 
its  purpose  an  entire!}^  novel  character.  We  deny  that  it  has 
this  character,  or  rather  to  express  our  thought  better,  we 
exempt  the  movement  from  the  imputation  of  it,  for  absolute 
novelty  would  lead  us  to  distrust  it.  Jesus  Christ  has  prom- 
ised to  be  with  his  church  till  the  end  of  the  world ;  now 
Jesus  Christ  is  not  divided ;  the  truth  which  is  himself,  and 
by  which  alone  he  remains  with  us,  this  truth  is  one  and  in- 
divisible, not  one  of  its  essential  elements  can  perish ;  every 
truth,  without  which  truth  would  be  incomplete,  is  perma- 
nent and  perpetual ;  and  we  are  sure  of  finding  it  virtually  at 
least,  wherever  we  meet  with  life.  Formulas  may  have  an 
end,  names  may  disappear,  and  when  they  do,  doubtless  we 
may  have  reason  to  think  that  ideas  are  obscured ;  now,  ideas 
can  be  obscured  only  when  sentiment  or  faith  has  suffered ; 
such  is  the  order  of  facts  in  parallel  cases.  Nevertheless, 
wherever  we  recognize  life,  truth  is  not  far  off;  wherever, 
again,  a  part  of  the  truth  is  frankly  acknowledged  and  coi- 
dially  professed,  other  parts,  though  concealed  it  may  be  in 
silence  and  shade,  and  seemingly  disregarded,  have  a  secret 
residence  in  the  soul  by  the  side  of  other  elements  of  truth, 

21 


482  INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE. 

from  which  they  are  inseparable.  If  Jesus  Christ  may  be 
divided  in  theory,  that  is  to  say,  in  formulas  and  words  which 
are  external  to  man,  he  cannot  be  divided  in  sentiment  which 
is  man  himself.  If  life,  then,  has  always  flowed  in  the  church 
either  in  large  streams  or  in  rills,  there  has  been,  in  one  sense, 
a  continuity  of  truth  as  well  as  a  continuity  of  life ;  an  un- 
broken tradition  connects  through  intervening  darkness  the 
most  remote  and  the  most  different  epochs :  Those  which 
are  termed  awakenings^  are  in  this  view  the  offspring  of  antece- 
dent epochs  ;  the  strong  have  descended  from  the  strong,  life 
has  sprung  from  life,  and  though  unquestionably  the  sovereign 
Lord  can  at  any  time  make  even  nothing  prolific,  history 
witnesses  that  he  has  always  employed  that  which  was  for  the 
advantage  of  that  which  was  to  be ;  that  he  has  chosen  that 
men  should  receive  the  truth  at  once  from  God  and  their 
fore-fathers ;  that  each  generation  should  be  indebted  to  the 
preceding  one,  and  that  no  one  should  be  able  absolutely  to 
disown  its  sire. 

Yet  more  than  this :  In  proportion  as  an  epoch  has  been 
more  embarrassed  with  sophisms,  more  destitute  of  believers, 
those  who  then,  cherishing  the  flame  of  life,  thereby  witnessed 
for  the  truth — these,  I  say,  whether  from  forgetting  in  part 
the  doctrines  of  salvation,  or  misunderstanding  their  mutual 
and  essential  relations  with  each  other,  or  whether  from  their 
having  in  their  haste  protested  against  the  dawn  of  that  new 
day  which  they  will  bless  forever — these  witnesses,  in  keeping 
alive  the  smoking  flax,  continuing  the  holy  tradition  of  the 
ages,  preparing  a  starting-point  for  the  next  generation,  had 
need  of  more  courage  and  more  energetic  faith  than  will  be 
necessary  perhaps  for  their  successors.  If  truth  is  inherited, 
equally  certain  is  it  that  courage  is  borrowed  or  given  ;  it  is 
easy  to  be  sincere  and  strong,  when  we  are  compassed  about 
by  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  sustained  by  a  thousand  sympathies ; 
but  it  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone ;  we  cannot  live  a 


INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE.  483 

higher  life  of  any  kind  alone ;  we  cannot,  in  a  certain  sense, 
believe  alone.  If  Jesus  Christ  experienced  this  solitude,  if 
he  left  the  world  without  having  tasted  the  sweets  of  spirit- 
ual communion,  if  nothing,  neither  faith  nor  love  failed  in 
him,  the  cause  was  that  he  was  in  all  respects  the  Solitary 
One.  Something,  however,  there  is,  which  feebly  recalls  this 
imparalleled  example ;  it  is  the  life  of  his  servants  in  a  de- 
generate and  infidel  age :  woe  to  us  if  we  have  no  regard  to 
it ;  if  certain  speculative  errors,  though  perhaps  serious  in  their 
principles  and  results,  shall  withhold  our  homage  from  those 
valiant  and  humble  continuators  of  the  everlasting  testimony. 
More  favored,  sirs,  than  other  nations  have  been,  we  have 
witnessed  with  us  no  rejection  of  the  truth,  either  in  its  doc- 
uments or  its  essential  articles,  or  in  its  just  representations. 
The  monuments  of  our  Fathers'  faith  have  remained  sacred 
among  their  children,  and  examples  are  not  wanting  in  our 
theological  history,  of  an  explicit  reception  of  this  inherit- 
ance, in  confessions  substantially  the  same  with  those  which, 
three  centuries  ago,  raised  the  standard  of  the  everlasting 
gospel.  We  may  say  that  at  least,  in  our  church,  Jesus 
Christ  has  never  been  wrapped  in  the  grave-clothes  of  oblivion, 
or  contemptuously  arrayed  in  the  mantle  of  Socrates ;  that 
his  holy  Name  has  never  been  blasphemed — has  always  been 
praised  and  adored  amongst  us ;  that  in  our  youth,  our  ears 
were  wont  to  hear  and  our  lips  to  proclaim  the  praise  of 
Jesus,  and  that  we,  his  messengers  especially,  have  been  fa- 
miliar with  a  venerable  voice  which  commended  to  us  the 
love  of  Christ,  the  Mediator,  as  the  chief  qualification,  and 
the  sole  efficiency  of  the  evangelical  ministry.  Our  Reals,* 
our  Curtats  and  others,  themselves  the  heirs  of  more  ancient 
witnesses,  have  bequeathed  to  us  confessions  and  examples ; 
and  if  they  were  not  in  their  day  the  centre  of  a  movement 

*  Real  was  the  author  of  an  excellent  Course  on  Religion,  for  the 
publication  of  which  we  are  indebted  to  Professor  Dufournet. 


484  ESrSTALLATION  DISCOURSE. 

like  that  which  it  is  our  privilege  to  behold,  it  was  because 
God  has  times  and  purposes  which  he  reserves  in  his  own 
knowledge. 

Less  to  the  honor  of  certain  men  than  to  the  glory  of  God, 
it  was  needful,  sirs,  to  allude  to  these  examples.  But  in  re- 
spect to  the  Divine  glory,  itself,  we  must  acknowledge  in 
these  times  a  progress  beyond  that  of  former  days — a  move- 
ment of  reform  and  renovation.  This  is  neither  the  place 
nor  the  season  for  presenting  the  defects  of  this  human  work, 
or  the  humanity  which  is  visible  in  it.  Let  us  note  to-day 
only  the  Hand  of  the  Master ;  and  let  us  hasten  to  say  with 
thanksgiving  :  Languid  faith  has  relighted  her  torch ;  convic- 
tions are  more  frankly  declared,  more  exactly  expressed; 
belief,  which  had  fallen  into  the  condition  of  a  corporate,  and 
so  to  speak  social  affair,  has  become  a  personal  and  thus  a 
living  thing  again.  Many  souls  having  become  serious,  have 
seized  the  good  part  which  cannot  be  taken  away  from  them ; 
a  larger  number,  affected  in  a  less  direct,  more  superficial 
manner,  have  begun  to  respect  at  least  what  they  do  not  yet 
love ;  and  the  multitude  are  so  accustomed  to  hear  certain 
truths  announced,  that  they  would  be  now  as  much  disturbed 
by  their  absence  as  they  would  j^erhaps  have  lately  been  of- 
fended by  their  presence.  We  must  acknowledge  that  many 
in  whom  formerly  the  natural  man  would  take  almost  no- 
thing from  the  man  of  religion,  have  been  brought  to  feel  the 
need  of  strict  consistency  of  life ;  that  Christianity,  zealous  a"^, 
to  fruit,  has  given  an  external  manifestation  of  its  truths  in 
works  as  vast  as  itself  is  great :  that  it  has  caused  its  presence 
and  reality  to  be  felt  in  all  spheres,  even  in  the  highest  con- 
ditions of  human  life ;  that  it  has  compelled  society  to  take 
it  into  calculation;  and,  in  fine,  that  a  multitude  of  questions 
all  of  which  imply  the  vitality  of  religion  and  a  sense  of  its 
importance,  and  which,  a  short  time  since,  would  have  been 


INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE.  485 

regarded  as  frivolous  and  antiquated,  have  become  serious 
and  urgent  questions.  Such  is  the  state  of  the  facts  which 
we  are  endeavoring  to  represent,  not  from  memory,  but  ex- 
perience, for  they  are  present  and  manifest.  If  now  we  con- 
sider the  ideas  themselves  whence  they  have  derived  their 
strength,  the  doctrines  they  are  connected  with,  it  is  impossi- 
ble not  to  see  that  they  have  drawn  not  from  the  sepulchre 
but  the  shade,  certain  parts  of  the  evangelical  system  which 
had  fallen  into  desuetude ;  that  to  truths  which  have  been 
always  maintained,  they  have  found  a  necessary  comple- 
ment in  other  truths  which  prescription  seemed  to  have  at- 
tainted ;  that  elevating  a  fallen  side  of  that  mysterious  trian- 
gle whereby  Christianity,  is  the  exact  image  of  God  himself, 
it  has  reinstated  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  thus 
imparted  substance  to  the  words  regeneration  and  conversion^ 
so  long  unmeaning  and  dead ;  that  these  words,  now  become 
powerful  ideas,  have  vitalized  and  illumined  many  others ; 
that,  by  this  means,  Christianity  has  formed  a  chain  in  thought, 
a  chain  in  life,  and  in  regard  to  both,  has  shown  itself  as- 
cendant and  energetic.  It  is,  sirs,  by  these  characteristics 
that  the  religious  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century  has 
been  distinguished  in  every  country  to  which  it  has  extended. 
Admirable  constancy,  impressive  unity,  since  no  force  has 
been  employed,  since  in  every  country  its  principle  has 
been  the  reinstatement  of  the  Divine  Word,  which,  when- 
ever it  obtains  from  the  heart  the  respect  which  is  due  to  it, 
restores  to  the  church  the  same  convictions,  the  same  Christ, 
the  same  God. 

If  it  is  by  means  of  preaching  that  the  religious  move- 
ment has  been  communicated,  still  preaching  is  not  its  princi- 
ple ;  we  may  then  inquire  how  far  and  in  what  respects  it 
has  modified  this  movement.  But  let  me  repeat,  nothing 
here  is  absolutely  new,  nothing  which  has  not  already  existed, 


486  INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE. 

at  least  as  an  exception,  and  what  we  have  to  show  is  pre- 
cisely this, — the  exception  making  itself  the  rule. 

Preaching  has  become  more  thoroughly  Biblical ;  not  only 
in  this  sense  that  textual  citations  from  the  Bible  have  been 
multiplied  in  sermons,  and  that  the  language  of  our  ministers 
is  more  deeply  imbued  with  that  of  the  apostles  and  prophets, 
(the  modern  pulpit  here  should  indeed  confess  to  some 
abuse ;)  but  in  this  more  important  sense,  that  the  Word  of 
God,  in  substance,  abounds  in  it,  that  divine  authority  every- 
where stamps  its  seal  upon  it,  that  the  preacher,  eclipsed  by 
his  mission,  leaves  nothing  to  be  seen* but  the  ambassador 
of  the  Most  High.  If,  as  we  cannot  deny,  individuality  has 
suffered  loss,  the  fault  is  ours,  not  that  of  the  principle,  which, 
so  far  from  requiring  such  a  sacrifice,  does  not  accept  it. 
Truth  requires  to  be  individualized  in  each  man  ;  the  better 
to  illustrate  its  unity,  it  seeks  to  multiply  itself  in  each  of 
the  souls  by  whom  it  is  received  ;  it  does  not  regard  itself 
as  enriched  by  our  loss ;  it  does  not  spread  ruins  around  it- 
self; a  living  thing,  it  has  no  fellowship  with  death  ;  it  con- 
verts James,  Peter  and  John,  into  saint  James,  saint  Peter, 
and  saint  John,  but  in  adding  sanctity  it  does  not  take  away 
humanity.  God,  moreover,  by  instituting  preaching  designed 
to  bring  man  into  contact  with  man  ;  he  attached  to  this  con- 
tact a  mysterious  and  singular  virtue  ;  now,  who  knows  not 
that  there  is  no  real  man  except  the  individual,  and  that  it  is 
by  his  personality  that  one  man  acts  on  another  1  Besides, 
when  the  preacher  is  animated  by  a  true  zeal,  individuality 
will  guide  itself  aright ;  it  is  always  w^ith  his  own  soul  that 
one  loves,  entreats,  laments,  and,  through  too  much  uniformity 
of  language  and  method,  perhaps,  the  personal  being  will  ap- 
pear even  in  spite  of  itself,  and  set  its  seal  on  a  work  to 
which  its  trembling  humility  would  assert  no  claim. 

This   profound    respect,    this  reverence  for  the  inspired 


INSTALLATION   DISCOUESE.  487 

Word,  has  made  it  literally  to  abound  in  our  pulpits  from 
which  it  had  before  descended  only  in  drops.  The  sermon 
has  more  frequently  been  replaced  by  the  homily,  the  para- 
phrase ;  explaining  holy  scripture,  and,  as  much  as  pos;:-i- 
ble,  explaining  it  by  itself,  appears  to  be,  as  it  was  in  the  fir.'it 
days  of  the  Church,  the  more  immediate  mission  of  the  preach- 
er ;  the  gospel  flows  in  full  tide  in  our  churches,  enlivening  at 
once  the  eloquence  of  the  minister  and  the  interest  of  his 
hearers ;  the  most  insensible  are  made  to  feel  the  charm  of 
his  perpetual  novelty ;  prejudice  itself  often  expires  before 
the  divine  unction  of  the  Word  ;  its  sternest  asseverations 
give  less  offence  than  our  most  prudent  discourses ;  and 
preaching,  as  penetrated  with  this  fresh  savor,  appears  to 
gain  equally  in  tenderness  and  in  authority. 

The  teaching  of  the  pulpit,  in  becoming  more  Biblical, 
must  needs  become  more  conclusive,  more  connected,  more 
complete.  In  a  system  which  is  truth  itself,  every  truth 
challenges  another  truth  as  its  complement  or  its  support, 
until  at  length  the  entire  chain  is  gone  over  and  joins  in- 
dissolubly  the  infinitude  of  our  misery  w^ith  the  infinitude 
of  the  divine  wisdom  and  goodness.  The  mind,  of  itself, 
in  the  absence  of  every  motive,  requires  this  consecutive- 
ness,  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  God  has  designed  to 
give  peace  at  the  same  time  to  our  understanding  and  our 
heart ;  and  such  satisfaction  pulpit  discourse  has  actually  im- 
parted to  us,  since  doctrine  in  all  its  completeness  has  been 
set  forth  in  relief.  Since  we  have  seen  each  jDarticular  subject 
so  exhibited  as  to  conduct  us  irresistibly  to  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  Christianity,  and  to  introduce,  as  of  itself,  the 
whole  of  religion  within  the  circle  of  each  sermon,  we  have 
understood  what  we  obscurely  experienced  formally,  at  the 
conclusion  of  some  of  our  best  sermons ;  we  have  thought, 
after  so  long  a  time,  how  many  a  truth  appeared  as  if  it  were 


488  INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE. 

suspended  in  the  air,  how  such  another  truth  supported  no- 
thing, how  all  of  them  together  did  not  bear  on  life  taken  in 
its  full  extent  and  depth ;  and  how,  in  a  word,  something  in- 
coherent and  incomplete  was  perceptible  even  in  the  best 
performances  of  the  most  logical  men. 

It  is  true  that  a  delight  which  should  peculiarly  fill  the 
soul,  is  too  often  diverted  to  the  understanding,  and,  from 
the  intimate  connection  between  the  different  parts  of  our 
being,  we  may  be  sometimes  deceived  as  to  the  seat  of  this 
delight.     Possibly,  a  religion   perfectly  consistent  because 
perfectly  true,  may  have  had  in  the  view  of  some  minds,  the 
charm  of  a  perfect  syllogism.     Possibly  the  satisfaction  of 
being  able  to  reason   out   our   religion,  may  have  led   us 
into  a  little  excess  of  reasoning  :  possibly  we  may  have  been 
desirous  of  extracting  our  religion,  body  and  soul,  out  of  logi- 
cal abstractions,  and  by  deducing  the  effect  from  the  cause, 
we  may  have  produced  conversions  rather  intellectual  than 
moral ;  possibly,  even,  we  may  have  attempted  to  perfect  a 
divine  logic,  and  in  order  to  open  a  plainer  and  more  direct 
path  to  christian  reasoning,  may  have  excluded  by  silence  at 
least,  some  inspired  passage,  and  consequently  some  truth 
which  God  has  set  as  a  snare  for  logical  pride.     Possibly,  in- 
deed, a  little  of  that  rationalism  which  orthodoxy  attacks 
with  so  much  spirit,  may  be  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
new  orthodoxy.     But  this  abuse,  the  seriousness  of  which  we 
would  not  conceal,  is  far  from  counterbalancing  the  unques- 
tionable merit  of  a  more  systematic  instruction  in  preaching 
— a   merit  of  which  the  2)ractical   results  should  teach  us 
the  great  importance. 

If  logic  may  be  defined  a  necessity  of  the  internal  man, 
every  element  of  our  being  has  its  logic,  since  every  one 
conceals  the  germ  of  a  necessity.     The  heart,  the  conscience, 


INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE.  489 

has  its  logic,  as  well  as  the  understanding  ;  for  each  of  these 
parts  of  our  internal  man  when  once  a  principle  is  recognized 
of  felt,  immediately  demands  the  conclusion  as  a  sacred  debt. 
Now,  when  these  three  necessities  coincide  in  one  point,  when 
in  their  union  they  bear  upon  the  will  with  the  weight  of  the 
entire  man,  how  can  the  will  resist,  or  rather  is  it  not  already 
absorbed  in  what  absorbs  the  entire  man  ?  See,  sirs,  what 
the  christian  preacher  becomes  armed  with,  this  triple  logic. 
See  what  vivacity  then  will  be  in  his  word,  what  urgency  in 
his  demands.  See  with  what  strength  a  doctrine  must  bind 
souls,  all  the  knots  of  which  are  so  closely  tied.  See  what 
importance  preaching  must  possess,  in  which  each  discourse, 
by  a  happy  necessity,  contains  the  whole  counsel  of  God. 

But  if  you  would  test  completely  the  principle  of  this 
urgency  and  this  vehemence  of  reason,  (I  may  well  so  name 
it,  for  it  lies  in  things  not  in  discourse,  and  the  most  moder- 
ate eloquence  leaves  it  its  fall  range,)  mark  the  characteristic 
doctrines  of  the  awakening  :  that  vivid  coloring  which  has 
displaced  all  half-tints  ;  that  thought  which,  comprising  the 
whole  gospel  in  the  most  urgent  and  commanding  dilemmas, 
divides  mankind  into  the  friends  and  enemies  of  the  trath, 
and  the  whole  of  life  into  two  thoroughly  distinct  eras,  that 
of  the  natural  and  that  of  the  new  man,  the  reign  of  the  flesh 
and  the  reign  of  the  spirit.  Mark  the  new  meaning  given  to 
this  word  conversion^  which  no  longer  signifies  a  gradual  and 
imperfect  reformation  of  morals,  but  a  resurrection  of  the 
whole  man  redeemed  from  the  most  radical  error  and  re- 
stored to  the  most  fundamental  truth ;  mark  the  abolition  of 
that  at  once  charitable  and  fatal  assumption,  which  regard- 
ing an  external  and  most  superficial  profession  as  serious, 
considers  all  those  as  believers  whom  baptism  has  devoted 
to  faith,  and,  making  no  other  difference  between  them  than 
that   of  different   degrees   of  zeal  and   purity,  obliges   the 

21* 


490  INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE. 

preacher  to  preach  sanctification  only,  that  is  to  say,  to  insist 
upon  the  consequence  before  the  principle  has  been  obtained. 
Truly  must  we  confess,  that  in  preaching  according  to  this 
idea  of  it,  Jesus  Christ,  not  designedly  but  by  logical  conse- 
quence, had  become  a  veritable  out- work  ;*  except  by  his  ex- 
ample and  teaching,  he  was  no  longer  the  starting-point  of 
morality  ;  and  even  then  it  was  necessary  to  separate  care- 
fully from  his  teaching  whatever  suspended  the  moral  desti- 
ny and  eternity  of  man,  on  anything  beside  man  himself: 
the  only  means  of  reaching  the  roots  of  moral  life,  of  trans- 
planting it  into  a  new  soil,  of  changing  the  wild  into  the  true 
olive-tree,  of  engrafting  a  divine  life  on  the  human  nature,  of 
removing  man  from  himself  and  restoring  him  to  God — this 
means,  rationally,  existed  no  longer ;  and  the  most  solemn 
words  of  Christ,  and  even  his  blood,  were  lost,  and  his  name 
was  a  pleonasm  in  our  discourse :  and  against  the  gospel 
thus  understood  there  arose  the  most  formidable  of  presump- 
tions— one  most  auspicious  to  the  hopes  of  infidelity,  namely, 
that  God,  who  is  always  constant  in  adapting  the  end  to  the 
means ;  God,  who  in  all  his  works  observes  the  most  rigid 
economy  and  an  exactitude  absolutely  mathematical,  had  ac- 
complished less  than  he  had  undertaken,  and  had  moved 
heaven  and  earth  in  vain,  that  is  to  say,  without  wisdom ;  in 
a  word,  that  God  who  always  calculates  with  perfect  precision, 
and  is  always  sure  of  his  end  in  action,  had  been  disappointed ! 

A  sounder  knowledge  of  the  gospel,  then,  has  saved,  to  the 
eye  of  reason,  the  honor  of  the  government  of  God ;  and 
has  furnished  the  preacher,  if  we  may  so  speak,  with  a  long- 
er lever,  by  which  he  may  raise  up  the  very  roots  of  our 
life.  The  word  of  the  preacher  has  become  more  energetic, 
more  vital,  more  incisive ;  it  can  arm  itself,  on  each  occasion, 
with  the  whole  gospel,  charge  with  the  weight  of  the  entire 
*  Hcyrs  (Tauvrc. 


INSTALLATION   DISCOURSE.  491 

truth,  each  particular  truth  of  detail  or  application.  Hence, 
that  lively  surprise,  that  astonishment  in  our  temj^les,  as  if  a 
new  gospel  was  preached ;  hence  those  emotions  heretofore 
unknown,  those  salutary  wounds,  which  are  not  healed  until 
he  who  inflicted  them  comes  to  bind  them  up  ;•  hence  that 
rumor  in  society,  that  trouble  in  lately  tranquil  relations,  to 
say  the  whole,  those  divisions  in  families, — a  result  which 
sometimes  arises,  it  must  be  admitted,  from  the  alarms  of  a 
suddenly-awakened  indifference,  and  from  the  rudeness  of  a 
too  impatient  zeal.  In  a  word,  preaching  in  these  same  tem- 
ples, these  same  consecrated  forms,  under  the  same  official 
costume,  has  returned,  through  the  gospel,  to  forgotten  times, 
whose  boldness,  whose  vehemence,  and  whose  rudeness,  in 
some  instances,  it  has  reproduced.  Under  the  robes  of  a 
minister  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  reformer  of  the  six- 
teenth is  often  discovered;  the  pastor  in  his  parish  ap- 
pears as  a  missionar}^ ;  he  would  seem  to  have  come  from 
farther  off  than  the  neighboring  borough ;  and,  in  fact,  it  is 
from  farther  off  that  he  comes  ;  he  suddenly  appears  like  a 
stranger  in  the  midst  of  his  flock,  and,  in  flict,  he  is  a  strang- 
er ;  he  is  a  stranger  on  the  earth,  how  much  more  in  his 
village,  in  his  town ;  and  it  may  be  said  of  him,  without  ex-- 
aggeration,  and  almost  without  a  figure,  that  "  his  place 
knoweth  him  no  more."     (Psalm  ciii.  10.) 

A  change  so  important  in  the  substance  of  teaching  must 
needs  have  affected  the  form  of  pulpit  compositions.  The 
zeal  of  the  messenger  excited  by  the  very  nature  of  his 
message  leads  him  to  multiply  himself,  to  abound,  so  to 
speak,  in  places,  persons  and  occasions.  Discourses  in  which 
applications  of  doctrine  replace  the  connection  of  ideas,  and 
the  regularity  of  the  didactic  process,  discourses  which  em- 
ploy familiar  analogies,  pointed  allusions,  those  spirited  apos- 
trophes which  seem  to  decompose   the  auditory  in   order  to 


492  INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE. 

maintain  a  colloquy  between  each  individual  and  the  preach- 
er, those  pressing  alternatives,  which,  forcing  the  hearer  to 
declare  for  or  against  the  truth  during  the  session  of  the  as- 
sembly, make  the  hours  of  worship  really  hours  of  trial  and 
initiation,  naturalize  in  the  bosom  of  our  churches  the  popu- 
lar eloquence  of  the  highways  or  the  desert.  From  the 
multiplicity  of  oratorical  exercises,  in  season  and  out  of  sea- 
son, extemporizing  proceeds,  a  practice  which  had  been  al- 
inost  unknown  amongst  us.  It  even  becomes  necessary  to 
those  of  our  ministers  who  desire  that  religion  amongst  and 
around  them  should  assume  the  character  of  a  reality,  and 
who  cannot  be  content  that  a  living  word  should  exist  only 
in  a  word  recited.  Even  discourses  which  are  written  and 
committed  to  memory,  sometimes  become,  through  haste 
in  the  labor,  another  form  of  extemporizing.  What  is  termed 
meditation,  that  is,  all  discourse  in  the  least  degree  meditated, 
becomes  abundant.  Perhaps  use  here  has  a  tendency  to 
abuse.  It  seems  to  be  forgotten  that  it  is  necessity  alone 
that  justifies  exclusive  extemporizing ;  that  ordinarily  the 
retrenchment  of  written  composition,  instead  of  excluding, 
requires  a  severe  preparation,  and  that  nothing  indeed  should 
be  better  premeditated  than  an  extemporaneous  discourse. 
We  may,  perhaps,  at  the  present  time,  satisfied  with  having 
received  to  ourselves  an  aptitude  in  which  we  were  wanting, 
think  ourselves  obliged,  by  the  importance  of  the  subjects  of 
the  pulpit,  either  to  cultivate  this  aptitude  with  extreme  caro, 
or  to  reserve  the  use  of  it  to  circumstances  which  require  it, 
allowing  the  habitual  exercise  of  it  only  to  those  special  and 
consummate  abilities  which  cannot  be  made  a  precedent, 
since  the  very  exhibition  of  their  force  teaches  us,  in  spite  of 
ourselves,  the  useful  secret  of  our  weakness. 

In  describing  so  far  the  influence  of  the  religious  move- 
ment on  preaching,  I  have  been  unable  to  avoid  noting  an  im- 


INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE.  493 

mediate  reaction  of  preaching  on  this  movement  itself.  But 
this  latter  reaction  is  wholly  spontaneous ;  it  springs  without 
design  from  the  very  nature  of  things  ;  there  is  another  reac- 
tion which  is  voluntary,  the  result  of  reflection  and  free  choice, 
in  which  preaching,  not  content  with  allowing  religion  to  re- 
gain by  a  natural  tendency  the  advantage  which  it  has  drawn 
from  it,  seeks  to  derive  from  other  sources  additional  advan- 
tage which  study  and  reflection  from  time  to  time  make  man- 
ifest to  it.  It  here  appears  purely  as  a  means,  as  an  instru- 
ment, and  offers  to  Christianity  the  tribute  of  certain  resources 
which  it  has  not  directly  borrowed  from  it.  There  is  no  pro- 
fane temerity  in  speaking  in  this  manner;  there  would  be,cer- 
tainly,  if  we  sought  to  add  to  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  gospel, 
or  wished  to  make  it  more  perfect,  to  improve  it ;  to  say 
that  we  wish  to  serve  it,  to  say  even  that  it  has  need  of  our 
services,  is  not  to  ascribe  to  it  a  decrepit  and  precarious  ex- 
istence ;  it  is  but  entering  into  the  very  spirit  of  its  author. 
In  the  moral  world,  the  force  of  God  which  is  not  to  be  ap- 
preciated, consists  of  our  forces,  even  as  the  work  of  his 
providence  is  very  often  the  sum  of  our  works ;  if  you  de- 
compose the  power  displayed  by  Christianity  into  visible  ele- 
ments, you  will  find  in  the  last  analysis  only  human  forces. 
Whatever  God  works  in  this  arrangement,  he  works  through 
us,  but  it  is  he  who  evokes  our  will,  who  determines  it ;  it  is 
he  who  permeates  and  coordinates  the  elements  offered  to 
him  by  our  nature ;  we  give  him  only  what  he  has  given  to 
us ;  we  work  only  what  he  works  in  us ;  he  is,  in  a  word, 
the  force  of  our  forces,  he  consequently  is  all ;  our  life  is  his 
life,  and  we  are  always  himself.* 

*  Is  there  aily  one  to  whom  these  last  lines  require  to  be  explain- 
ed? I  hope  no  one  will  see  in  them  more  than  I  have  intended, 
namely,  a  persuasion  that  all  good  flows  from  God,  and  ought  to  be 
ascribed  to  him ;  that  every  moral  agent,  in  doing  good,  fulfil^  the 
purpose  and  performs  the  work  of  God  ;  that  it  is  impossible  to  dis- 


494  INSTALLATION  DISCOUKSE. 

Now,  assuming  these  principles,  how  may  the  pulpit  sub- 
serve the  religious  movement "?  It  may  be  replied,  partly  by 
purifying,  partly  by  accrediting  it.  But  this  distinction  is  su- 
perfluous. The  last  of  these  effects  is  contained  in  the  first. 
Whatever  shall  purify  this  movement,  will  also  propagate  it. 
Let  us  not  misunderstand  what  the  gospel  affirms  respecting 
the  natural  opposition  of  man  to  the  doctrine  of  salvation. 
This  opposition  indeed  is  cei'tain,  but  not  less  so  is  the  adap- 
tation of  the  gospel  to  the  deepest  necessities  of  our  nature, 
or  to  embrace  all  in  a  word,  the  perfect  humanity  of  the  chris- 
tian religion.  When  a  heart  is  gained  to  the  gospel,  it  is 
gamed  hy  the  gospel,  by  something  which  is  in  the  gospel ; 
and  lest  you  should  impute  the  change  to  nothing  more  than 
some  occult  influence,  or  as  Saurin  says,  to  I  know  not  what 
"  fabulous  enchantment,"  that  heart  \\  ill  be  careful  to  tell  you 
what  has  gained  it,  and  it  will  tell  you  this  so  perfectly  that 
you  will  be  astonished  at  only  one  thing,  namely,  why  it  is 
that  all  hearts  appealed  to  by  the  same  means  are  not  also 
gained.  Here  is  the  mystery,  but  it  is  only  here.  The  gos- 
pel is  reason  itself,  hence  it  gains  us ;  the  gospel  is  reason 
itself,  hence  it  repels  us.  Be  this  as  it  may,  its  force  is  in 
showing  itself  as  it  is ;  and  whatever  manifests  it  more  fully, 
makes  it  more "  powerful,  and  the  more  it  shows  itself  divine, 


tinguish  and  separate  from  God's  work,  what  he  does  not  work  di- 
rectly and  personally,  that  is  to  say,  in  few  words,  whatever  is  not, 
strictly  speaking,  a  miracle  ;  that  it  is  even  a  contradiction  to  sup- 
pose that  anything  which  is  true,  anything  which  really  is,  does  no^ 
always  and  in  every  instance  flow  from  him.  This  is  my  thought, 
not  that  there  is  any  confusion  of  essence  between  God  and  man ; 
not  that  our  personality  is  absorbed  in  that  of  God,  not  especially 
that  our  personality  is  absorbed  in  his  liberty.  In  my  view,  and  so 
must  every  one  think  who  examines  his  consciousness,  man,  in  re- 
spect of  good  or  of  God,  is  a  living  channel,  personal  and  free;  God 
is  the  fountain  whicli  flows  throuo-h  this  channel. 


INSTALLATION   DISCOUESE.  495 

the  more  will  it  be  human  ;  it  ceases  to  be  human,  that  is  to 
say,  suited  and  adapted  to  humanity,  only  when  man  by  rob- 
bing it  of  its  crown  of  miracles  and  its  veil  of  mystery,  would 
bring  it  down  to  himself.  If  Jesus  Christ  should  cease  to  be 
perfect  God,  he  would  cease  to  be  perfect  man. 

To  extend  the  religious  movement,  then,  we  must  purify 
it.  If  it  has  been  restricted  within  limits  narrower  than  our 
hopes,  it  was,  on  one  hand,  I  readily  acknowledge,  because  it 
was  christian ;  but  it  was  also  because  it  was  not  enough  so. 
The  day  of  repulsion  draws  to  a  close ;  let  us  hasten  that  in 
which  the  power  of  attraction  is  to  prevail.  How  are  we  to 
do  this  ?     By  imitating  Jesus  Christ. 

In  his  actions  as  well  as  in  his  nature,  Jesus  Christ  was 
perfect  man.  Let  us  consent  to  be  so.  Jesus  Christ  accommo- 
dated his  word  and  his  action  to  the  circumstances  in  which 
he  acted  and  spoke ;  his  apostles  followed  his  example.  Let 
us  follow  their  example  and  his.  Let  us  ever  keep  before  us 
humanity  and  the  age.  Let  us  descend  (if  indeed  it  be  de- 
scending) from  the  pure  region  of  ideas  into  the  domain  of 
the  real  and  the  actual.  By  so  doing  we  always  approach 
nearer  to  Christianity  and  the  Gospel. 

Thus  preaching,  faithful  to  its  mission,  walking  in  its  own 
footsteps,  will  continue  to  publish  those  doctrines  which  abase 
all  human  pride  before  the  counsel  of  God ;  it  will  announce 
this  God  on  earth,  this  God  on  the  cross,  perpetual  folly  to  the 
Greeks  of  all  places,  perpetual  scandal  to  the  Jews  of  all  ages ; 
it  will  proclaim  as  the  sole  condition  of  salvation,  that  new 
birth,  the  necessity  of  which  abolishes  all  pride  in  the  human 
soul — dangerous  preaching,  which  provokes  the  meekest,  and 
moves  the  contemptuous  pity  of  the  most  ignorant  of  man- 
kind !  This  way  though  sowed  with  thorns,  is  the  good  one ; 
let  preaching  always  walk  therein !  But,  faithful,  in  every 
respect,  to  the  Master's  example,  let  it  always  combine  the 


INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE. 

characteristics  of  humanity  with  the   characteristics  of  the 
age. 

Our  imagination  here  does  not  labor  without  assistance ; 
the  existing  pulpit,  sirs,  you  are  aware  presents  us  fine 
models,  fine  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  of  evangelical  orators 
who  are  attentive  to  the  signs  of  the  times  and  the  character- 
istics of  humanity. 

The  few  ideas  which  we  have  yet  to  propose  to  you,  we 
shall  not  arrange  distinctly  under  the  two  leading  ones,  which 
we  have  indicated,  namely,  humanity  and  the  present  age ; 
they  correspond  to  both  at  the  same  time,  as  with  propriety 
they  may ;  each  age  taken  in  its  reality  conceals  the  real 
man  as  a  whole ;  and  that  which  meets  the  legitimate  de- 
mands of  an  epoch,  meets  the  exigencies  of  human  nature. 

Tlius  the  present  epoch  requires  what  humanity  requires, 
when  it  demands  that  the  rational  side  of  Christianity,  its 
philosophy,  be  set  in  relief,  and  that  it  become,  as  it  were,  the 
instrument  of  an  intellectual,  as  well  as  of  a  moral  regeneration. 
This  demand  or  this  right,  consequently  this  duty,  is  one  of 
all  times  ;  there  certainly  has  not  been  an  epoch  in  which  the 
gospel  should  not  have  been  held  as  reasonable.  We  may 
even,  in  a  sublime  sense,  call  that  reason  wdiich  in  all  ages 
has  determined  mind  to  submit  itself  to  the  gospel.*     But 

*  Fond  as  we  are  and  justly  fond  of  faith, 
Reason  we  grant  demands  our  first  regard : 
The  mother  lionor'd  as  the  daughter  dear. 
Reason  the  root,  fair  Faith  is  but  the  flower, 
The  fading  flower  shall  die  but  Reason  lives 
Immortal,  as  her  father  in  the  skies.  *  *  * 
Wrong  not  the  Chri|tian  ;  think  not  reason  yours; 
'Tis  reason  our  great  Master  holds  so  dear ; 
'Tis  reason's  injured  rights  his  wrath  resents  ; 
'Tis  reason's  voice  obeyd,  his  glories  crown  : 
To  give  lost  reason  life,  he  pour'd  his  own, 


INSTALLATION  DISCOUKSE.  497 

the  equilibrium  which  is  now  demanded,  has  not  been  al- 
ways so  distinctly  demanded.  The  conscience  and  heart,  the 
processes  of  which  are  essentially  summary  and  synthetic, 
have  often  left  little  place  for  the  analyses  of  reason.  We 
may  even  go  further.  The  conscience  and  heart  have  often 
had  to  be  reasonable,  in  place  of  reason,  which  has  not  been 
so  ;  and  everything  has  been  clear  and  logical  in  the  soul, 
when  everything  in  the  mind  has  been  embarrassed  and  sub- 
tile. The  epoch  in  which  we  live  appears  to  have  taken  as  a 
motto,  the  apostolical  precept :  "  Let  your  '  obedience  be 
reasonable."  It  has,  perhaps,  demanded  not  so  much  the 
exposition  of  the  external  proofs  of  religion,  as  the  demon- 
stration of  its  internal  consistency,  and  its  agreement  as  a 
whole  with  whatever  belongs  to  the  heart  and  to  human  a^ 
fairs.  It  requires  an  explanation  of  Christianity  and  its  phil- 
osophy. Not,  sirs,  a  philosophy  which  it  would  obtain  in 
exchange  for  Christianity,  but  a  philosophy  which  it  desires 
to  receive  from  the  hands  of  Christianity.*  Nor  does  it  ask 
for  an  intellectual  exhibition  for  the  satisfaction  of  certain 
superior  understandings  ;  it  asks  for  a  satisfaction  in  which 
the  popular  reason  is  to  have  a  share.  What  it  requires  as 
an  end,  it  also  requires  as  a  means ;  it  supposes  that  Chris- 
tianity so  taught,  would  become  to  the  people  the  most 
powerful  incentive  to  reflection,  the  most  effectual  means  of 
intellectual  elevation,  and  the  source  of  all  the  substantial  and 

Believe,  and  show  the  reason  of  a  man ; 
Believe,  and  taste  the  pleasure  of  a  god ; 
Believe,  and  look  with  triumph  on  the  tomb, 
Thro'  reason's  wounds  alone  the  faith  can  die. 

(Young,  Night  IV.) 
*  "  Allerdings  ist  Dogmatik  eine  Philosophic  und  muss  als  solche 
Btudirt  werden  ;  nur  eine  Philosophic  aus  der  Bihel  geschcepft,  imd 
diese  muss  immer  ihre   Quelle  bleiben."     (Herder's  Briefe  das  Stu- 
dium  der  Theologie  bettrefend.) 


498  INSTALLATION   DISCOUESE. 

sound  ideas  by  which  their  life  ought  to  be  governed.  I 
readily  admit  that  preaching,  so  far  as  it  is  christian,  has  met 
these  necessities  and  demands  ;  but  who  can  say  that  atten- 
tive observation  of  men  and  of  the  age  is  not  necessary  to 
their  being  met  more  perfectly,  and,  what  is  greatly  to  be 
admired,  to  their  rendering  preaching  in  this  respect  more 
chiistian  ?  for  such  is  the  correspondence  between  the  chris- 
tian religion  and  humanity,  that  each,  well  apprehended,  must 
lead  to  the  other,  and  so  faith  and  nature  approximate  each 
other. 

When  we  speak  of  the  philosophy  of  Christianity,  we 
seem  to  be  speaking  of  something  extraordinary,  far  remote, 
accessible  to  but  a  few  minds ;  and  yet  to  say  that  Chris- 
tianity is  philosophical,  is  but  saying  in  other  terms,  that  it 
agrees  with  itself,  with  our  nature,  that  it  is  human,  simple, 
consistent,  practical.  Thus  we  can  take  no  better  way  to  ex- 
hibit the  philosophy  of  the  gospel,  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  to  promote  the  religious  movement,  than  by  making 
our  sermons  to  abound  in  the  morality  which  abounds  in  the 
gospel  itself  The  christian  pulpit,  in  this  respect,  has  a 
position  to  regain,  and  until  it  does  regain  it,  the  preacher 
cannot  know  what,  in  such  an  epoch  as  ours,  may  be  his 
authority  and  his  power.  Let  him  examine,  then,  the  book 
of  God,  under  a  new  aspect ;  he  will  there  see  morality  every- 
where prominent,  sometimes  completing,  and  sometimes 
completed  by  doctrhie  ;  he  will  see  these  two  parts  of  truth 
not  only  in  harmony  but  extending  one  another.  Let  him 
admire  this  continuity,  let  him  lead  his  hearers  to  admire  it. 
Every  day  he  hears  the  demand  from  the  world,  preach 
morality  to  us.  Let  him  not  repel  that  demand  in  contempt 
of  the  motives  which  prompt  it ;  it  is  founded  in  right,  it  de- 
serves to  be,  at  the  same  time,  corrected  and  met ;  let  the 
preacher  do  both ;  let  morality  be  set  at  large  in  his  dis- 


INSTALLATION   DISCOURSE.  499 

courses  on  a  solid  foundation ;  with  equal  care  let  him  show 
that  morality  is  all  doctriiie,  and  doctrine  all  morality ;  let 
the  one  of  these  make  the  other  to  abound ;  let  this  noble 
science  of  life  and  mamiers,  a  natural  appendage  of  the  preach- 
er, ascend  by  a  severe  study  to  the  rank  from  which  it 
has  fallen ;  let  morality,  by  turns  descriptive,  speculative, 
practical,  be  united  in  all  subjects  as  intimately  as  the  blood  is 
united  to  the  flesh,  fill  our  discourses  with  its  solid  wealth ; 
in  a  word,  let  the  minister  of  the  Gospel  take  possession 
again  of  his  ancient  prerogative,  that  of  being  the  closest 
confidant  of  the  human  heart,  the  most  instructive  and  the 
most  practical  of  moralists. 

We  shall  further  hearken  to  the  counsels  of  the  times  and 
promote  the  religious  movement,  by  improving  the  forms  of 
sacred  discourse.  The  time  is  past,  if  it  ever  existed,  in 
which  the  pulpit  may  remain  with  impunity  behind  the  other 
branches  of  the  art  of  writing,  in  respect  of  precision  and 
purity  of  language.  It  is  necessary,  at  the  present  day,  in 
order  to  banish  from  the  threshold  of  conscience,  prejudices 
which,  to  certain  minds  of  a  fastidious  character,  may  be 
a  lasting  hinderance,  that  evangelical  discourse  should  not  be 
unpolished  and  rude ;  it  is  necessary,  that  when  compared 
with  other  products  of  the  miderstanding,  it  should  not  ap- 
pear chargeable  with  any  kind  of  inferiority,  and  that  no  one 
should  have  it  to  say,  with  any  appearance  of  reason,  that 
it  is  only  the  ears  of  the  vulgar  of  which  it  has  the  command. 
We  approach  society,  we  gain  a  real  authority  over  it,  by 
striving  with  it  after  progress  of  every  kind,  by  commending 
to  it  the  only  progress  in  which  its  zeal  is  deficient.  By  ex- 
pressing truth  with  precision,  with  energy,  we  strengthen  the 
impression  which  it  produces,  we  render  to  it  its  native 
beauty.  And  let  it  not  be  imagined  that  the  merit  of  an 
elaborate  composition  may  be  anywhere  lost,  from  its  not 


500  INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE. 

being  everywhere  appreciated  with  the  same  justice.  In  all 
minds  true  excellence  and  true  beauty  find  a  point  where 
they  are  felt.  Their  intimate  congruity  with  all  the  primi- 
tive wants  of  our  soul  enables  them,  at  length,  to  penetrate  it ; 
the  discernment  of  just  expressions  and  select  forms  gradually 
becomes  an  instinct  with  the  multitude ;  and  the  preacher's 
care  as  to  the  logic  of  his  composition  and  the  texture  of  his 
language,  gives  him  a  new  authority  over  the  people,  where- 
by he  becomes  not  only  their  spiritual  guide,  but,  in  many 
respects,  their  law-giver. 

The  pastor  who  has  always  been  the  principal  school-mas- 
ter of  each  parish,  thus  becomes  so,  in  a  more  special  man- 
ner ;  the  church  is  the  high-school  both  of  adults  and  little  chil- 
dren ;  religion,  in  short,  is  manifestly  the  centre  of  all  civil- 
izing ideas.  For  by  such  an  unwonted  application  to  the 
culture  of  the  entire'  man,  to  the  provision  of  pure  aliment 
for  each  of  his  faculties,  and  especially  to  the  establishment 
of  unity  and  order  among  them,  the  secret  of  effecting  which 
is  possessed  only  by  religion,  it  scatters  from  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  pulpit  into  the  furrows  of  society,  the  seeds  of 
civilization,  which  is  nothing  other  than  the  relative  perfec- 
tion of  the  state  of  man.  We  should  beware  of  engaging 
in  questions  which  the  gospel  would  neither  agitate  nor  re- 
solve ;  it  is  not  the  part  of  the  gospel  to  transport  itself  in- 
to the  State,  rather  does  it  belong  to  the  latter  to  transport 
itself  to  the  religious  point  of  view,  but  it  belongs  to  preach- 
ing to  open  its  way  to  it,  by  discovering  to  it,  by  making 
visible  to  it,  the  sympathy  of  religion  for  man,  and  the  cog- 
nizance which  it  takes  of  all  our  true  interests.  In  order  to 
do  this  preaching  is  under  no  necessity  to  forsake  its  own 
good  part,rand,  like  another  Martha,  to  occupy  itself  with 
many  different  things  ;  let  it  only  understand  what  "  the  one 
thing  needful"  includes ;  let  it  be  more  consistent  with  all 
the  characteristics  of  humanity,  and  discover  no  ignorance  of 


INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE.  501 

the  end  for  which  man  was  made,  give  him  no  occasion,  by 
the  uniformity  of  its  accent,  by  a  studied  dignity,  by  a  fac- 
titious asceticism  of  language,  by  the  affected  avoidance  of 
certain  details  and  allusions,  in  a  word,  by  I  know  not  what 
excentricity,  for  the  supposition  that  it  dwells  in  the  void,  far 
away  from  him,  and  that  to  begin  to  be  a  christian  is  to  cease 
to  be  a  man.  Religion,  I  thmk,  would  appear  much  more  as 
a  real  thing,  near  and  necessary,  if  it  were  seen  as  a  pure 
and  divine  essence,  palpitating  in  the  life,  and  if  preaching 
after  showing  itself  to  us  as  rational,  should  make  us  feel  that 
it  is  a  thing  of  life,  that  is  to  say,  human.* 

If,  from  a  distant  date,  preaching,  with  a  structure  some- 
what rigid  and  forms  somewhat  arbitrary,  has  wanted  the 
character  of  a  discourse  thoroughly  real,  and  having  a 
business-like  purpose,  a  character  which  the  tribune  and 
the  bar  have  never  lost,  this  is  a  disadvantage  which,  in  the 
epoch  in  which  we  live,  will  be  much  more  observable.  If 
anything  distinguishes  our  age  it  is  that  positive  spirit  which 
restores  all  the  metaphors  of  life  to  their  proper  meaning, 
which  inquires  for  the  value  of  each  sign,  the  reason  of  each 
form,  which  would  have  every  word  to  be  a  fact,  every  dis- 
course an  action,  which  banishes  every  arbitrary  or  unin- 
telligible ceremonial  from  style  as  well  as  from  society,  and 
which  requires  eloquence,  especially,  to  explain  its  procedures 
no  longer  to,  I  know  not  what  kind  of  art,  what  kind  of  con- 
gruities,  but  to  life.  Without  inquiring  whether  this  tenden- 
cy is  not  becoming  excessive,  we  maintain  that  the  traditional 
form  of  pulpit  discourse,  a  form  which  its  purpose  has  never 
fully  authorized,  is  in  this  day  a  real  anachronism  ;  and  that 
in  the  midst  of  a  movement  which  tends  to  transform  idea  into 
business,  it  is  most  unsuitable  to  give  to  the  most  positive 
as  well  as  most  important  busmess,  the  deceptive  appearance 
*  See  the  note  at  the  end  of  the  discourse. 


502  INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE. 

of  an  idea.  Formerly,  however,  when  formality  enveloped 
everything,  there  was  no  place  for  painful  comparisons,  but 
from  what,  in  our  day,  has  religious  movement  to  suffer 
more,  than  from  a  parallel  which  would  oblige  us  to  regard 
it  as  alone  among  human  interests,  dissembling  its  reality, 
and,  in  this  respect  alone,  faithful  to  the  traditions  of  the 
past,  which  thus  render  it,  in  spite  of  itself,  a  thing  of  the 
past,  a  dead  thing  ? 

We  shall  not  invoke  the  interest  of  pulpit  dignity  in  favor 
of  these  exceptional  forms.  Most  singular  would  it  be  if  a 
form  were  to  be  more  worthy  in  proportion  as  it  answers  less 
to  its  understood  purpose  !  Unfortunate,  indeed,  if  dignity 
should  exclude  naivete,  intimacy,  and  even  good  sense  (for, 
from  a  costume  which  disfigures  every  subject,  this  suffers 
more  than  all.)  Most  certainly  we  would  not  have  the  evan- 
gelical word  cease  to  be  august  in  order  to  be  familiar.*  Let 
Christianity  lose  nothing  of  its  majesty  ;  in  an  epoch  in  which 
respect  is  disappearing,  let  it  remain  the  object  of  a  last  re- 
spect, and  restore  all  other  kinds,  respect  for  conscience,  for 
law,  for  age,  for  infirmity  and  misfortune ;  but  in  a  positive 
age,  let  it  show  itself  yet  more  positive  and  more  real  than 
everything  else ;  let  us  trust  to  its  incomparable  dignity  to 
counterbalance  the  familiarity  of  forms,  and  far  from  fearing 
that  ridicule  will  connect  itself  with  the  simple  expressions 

*  I  cannot  forbear,  here,  throwing  in  a  remark.  There  have  been 
times  and  places  in  which  preaching  became,  (almost  so,  at  least,)  a 
serious  and  familiar  colloquy,  the  pulpit  an  arm-chair,  the  church  a 
conventicle ;  in  some  respects  this  was  well,  but  let  us  not  proceed 
too  far;  let  us  preserve  to  preaching  that  majesty  which  is  connect- 
ed in  part  with  the  idea  of  a  great  community,  of  a  confederation 
of  consciences,  and  of  an  influence  on  masses.  Let  not  a  stranger 
who  enters  a  temple,  regard  as  a  confidential  conversation,  a  dis- 
course in  which  he  expected  a  reproduction  of  the  Apostles,  the 
Fathers,  and  the  great  orators  of  the  ancient  pulpit 


INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE.  603 

of  nature,  and  the  vivid  colors  of  reality,  let  us  not  forget 
that  to  the  pulpit  only  is  it  permitted  to  be  familiar  with  im- 
punity, and  that  nothing  more  surely  exposes  it  to  ridicule 
than  a  ceremonious  politeness  so  opposite  to  the  frankness  of 
the  prophets,  and  from  a  parade  of  forms  so  different  from  the 
unrestrained  pathos  and  the  impetuous  logic  of  the  apos- 
tles. 

There  may  be  no  disagreement  between  artifices  intended 
to  disguise  the  true  form  of  things,  and  other  sorts  of  elo- 
quence which  have  to  conceal  in  their  purpose,  I  know  not 
what  kind  of  interior  nothing,  but  Christianity,  which  is  essen- 
tial life  and  substance,  Christianity  which,  among  the  things 
which  interest  us,  is  the  only  one  absolutely  serious  and  solid, 
is  only  a  gainer  by  presenting  herself  without  her  veil. 

Preachers !  your  business  is  a  business ;  yet  more  than  sen- 
ators and  advocates,  you  are  advocates  and  senators ;  be  both ; 
let  your  pulpit  be  to  you  alternately  a  tribune  and  a  bar ;  let 
your  word  be  an  action  directed  to  an  immediate  object ;  let 
not  your  hearers  come  to  hear  a  discourse,  so  much  as  to  re- 
ceive a  message ;  possess  yourselves,  possess  them  of  all  the 
advantages  which  pertain  to  the  subjects  of  the  pulpit ;  your 
eloquence  has  more  artless  aspects  and  more  vivid  tints  than 
that  of  the  senate  or  the  bar ;  nothing  condemns  it  to  ab- 
straction ;  everything  impels  it  toward  sensible  facts.  Your 
religion  was  a  history  before  it  became  an  idea ;  and  to-day, 
after  too  long  a  stagnation,  the  lake  becomes  a  river  again, 
the  idea  becomes  again  a  history.  What  hinders  you  from  ^ 
adding  in  the  pulpit  to  the  miracles  of  the  past,  the  marvels 
of  the  present,  and  from  recounting,  day  by  day,  the  history 
of  God  %  Why  may  you  not  mingle  with  your  instructions 
the  glorious  news  of  the  kingdom,  and  make  your  temples 
resound  with  the  cries  of  distress,  and  the  songs  of  victory, 
and  if  it  must  be  so,  even  with  the  complaints  of  the  church 


504  INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE. 

militant  ?  Why  not  show  in  Christianity  more  than  a  doc- 
trine, but  above  all,  that  it  is  a  livhig  fact,  perpetually  gush- 
ing forth,  and  now,  thanks  to  God,  in  large  and  rapid  floods. 
Is  the  history  closed  that  you  relate  1  Does  God  sleep  1  or 
should  his  past  works  be  ashamed  of  his  new  works  ? 
Or,  indeed,  is  all  which  is  done  for  the  glory  of  God  by  other 
than  salaried  hands,  and  with  other  resources  than  the  treasure 
of  the  State,  without  claim  to  be  mentioned  in  your  official 
pulpits,  and  before  the  flock  which  has  been  committed  to 
you  ?  And  are  we  still  to  regard  as  matter  of  religious  lux- 
ury, of  christian  dilettantism,  labors  which  hold  the  first  rank 
among  our  duties  ?  And  shall  we  reserve  for  the  conferences 
of  the  initiated,  the  recital  of  a  work  which  perpetuates  that  of 
Peter  and  Apollos,  of  Paul  and  Timothy  ? 

Either,  sirs,  I  am  greatly  deceived,  or  the  present  epoch 
demands  facts  from  Christianity  and  recitals  from  the  pulpit. 
Recitals  mixed  in  just  proportion  with  formal  and  direct  in 
struction,  are  interesting  to  all  classes  of  hearers.  More 
than  all  arguments,  they  convince  the  multitude  that  Chris- 
tianity is  living,  that  religion  is  a  thing  for  man.  I  would 
not  surfeit,  nor  even  aniuse  the  imagination.  I  would  not 
go,  of  preference,  beyond  seas  and  beneath  unknown  skies,  to 
seek  for  extraordinary  scenes.  I  would  often,  so  I  think, 
take  serious  and  simple  facts  from  my  neighborhood,  from 
the  enclosure  of  our  own  country  and  manners ;  I  would 
select  modest,  obscure,  unobtrusive  ones ;  I  would  cite, 
if  I  might,  lives  rather  than  actions ;  I  would  only  at  proper 
times  and  at  intervals  enlarge  the  horizon  of  my  auditory ;  I 
would  endeavor  by  all  means  gradually  to  give  the  religion 
which  I  announce,  the  aspect  of  a  business  and  an  urgent 
business  ;  I  would  not  fear  making  it,  if  needs  be,  the  busi- 
ness of  the  country,  of  the  commune,  of  the  place ;  still  I 
would  touch  discreetly  on  these  aspects  of  the  subject,  lest 


INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE.  505 

the  interest  of  the  individual  be  merged  in  that  of  society, 
and  the  eternal  in  that  which  is  local  and  transitory. 

I  have  given  you,  sirs,  few  ideas  and  very  long  details. 
The  subject  might  have  been  treated  more  largely  and  more 
briefly.  Excuse  at  the  same  time  my  omissions  and  my  ex- 
pansion. I  am  impatient  to  release  your  wearied  attention ; 
but  can  I  do  so  without,  in  a  few  words,  relieving  a  heart 
which  is  too  full,  which  until  now  has  been  obliged  to  re- 
strain itself,  and  which  even  now  would  feign  repress  its 
emotions,  but  not  by  imposing  on  itself  a  silence  which  it 
camiot  maintain  ? 

One  thought  has  long  filled  and  oppressed  my  heart,  which 
I  would  fain  express  in  words ;  it  is  that  which  arises  in  me 
when  I  compare  what  I  am  with  the  chair  which  has  been  en- 
trusted to  mte.  But  this  chair  I  have  at  length  accepted,  and 
whatever  may  be  the  state  of  my  mind  and  my  apprehen- 
sions as  to  my  future,  I  know  that  henceforth  I  am  not  to 
speak  of  them  to  men;  an  instinct  which  will  be  compre- 
hended, from  this  moment  puts  a  seal  on  my  lips. 

But  I  may,  I  ought  to  say  thus  much : 

I  enter  on  my  new  career  with  two  sentiments,  which  if 
God  preserve  them  to  me,  must  impart  one  direction  to 
my  labors,  one  tenor  to  my  life. 

The  first  of  these  sentiments  is  that  of  the  responsibility 
of  my  position.  I  am  to  succeed  a  man,  whose  christian  vir- 
tues, great  experiences,  valuable  and  long-continued  services? 
admirable  probity  and  prudence,  gave  him  an  authority  to 
which  I  shall  never  aspire.  In  concert  with  my  honorable  col- 
leagues,! am  to  labor  after  his  example,  in  giving  worthy  minis- 
ters to  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ.  If  the  responsibility  of 
ministers  is  great,  what  then  is  ours  1  What,  in  particular, 
is  that  of  the  professor  who  is  charged  to  give  instruction 
more  directly,  to  candidates  for  the  ministry,  in  regard  to 

22 


506  INSTALLATION  DISCOUKSE. 

the  exercise  of  their  functions,  to  determine  by  his  lessons 
the  whole  character  and  form  of  their  life.  This  idea  which 
has  taken  possession  of  me,  I  have  retained  with  a  kind  of  af- 
fection ;  I  have  not  been  willing  to  allow  it  to  escape  from 
me ;  I  have  hardly  suffered  any  other  that  might  temper  and 
soften  it,  to  connect  itself  with  it ;  I  have  desired  to  taste 
without  abatement  its  austerity,  and,  if  I  may  so  express 
myself,  its  holy  bitterness,  and,  with  a  proper  distrust  of  my- 
self, I  have  repelled,  or  or  at  least  delayed  the  outward  sup- 
ports which  have  been  and  are  presented  to  me,  and  which 
I  regard  prospectively  w^ith  gratitude,  but  which  I  shall  ac- 
cept only  when  God  shall  permit  me  to  do  so. 

Think  not,  however,  students  of  this  Academy,  that  my 
heart  refuses  the  sweet  intercourse,  to  which  I  doubt  not, 
your  friendship  will  tempt  it.  This  heart,  let  me  assure  you, 
is  not  reluctant  to  open  itself.  It  asks  but  little,  in  truth, 
and  would  not  even  accept  sympathies  too  much  above  what 
it  merits ;  confidence  and  respect  is  the  mild  atmosphere  in 
which  I  need  to  live,  and  apart  from  which  the  small  abilities  I 
possess  are  disquieted  and  vanish.  I  say  nothing  of  the  views 
with  which  I  come  to  you ;  I  am  afraid  to  say  too  much  con- 
cerning them  at  a  moment  in  which  an  intense  preoccupation 
holds  the  most  natural  sentiments  captive  in  my  heart,  and 
under  the  weight  of  this  preoccupation,  I  am  also  afraid  of 
saying  too  little.  Let  us  then,  sirs,  leave  the  expression  of 
them  to  time  and  facts ;  and  rest  persuaded,  that  I  regarded 
you,  in  accepting  my  charge,  that  my  predominant  thought 
had  relation  to  you,  and  that  from  this  moment,  the  object 
of  your  own  desires  and  most  serious  prayers  shall  be  the 
first  concern  of  my  life. 

Be  indulgent  then,  to-day,  in  your  requirements  of  me.  I 
might  speak  of  my  affection  for  you,  and  no  one  would  doubt 
my  sincerity.     Prefer,  however,  to  hear  me  on  the  object  of 


INSTALLATION  DISCOUESE.  507 

our  common  affection  and  on  the  point  of  view  in  which  I  re- 
gard our  common  vocation.  Suffice  it  that  I  assure  you,  that 
I  come  in  the  name  and  at  the  call  of  God,  to  study  with 
you  a  human  art,  which  as  to  its  use,  and  as  to  its  means, 
has  been  rendered  divine.  In  particular,  be  content  to  know, 
that  the  man  who  offers  himself,  to  aid  as  far  as  he  can,  youl 
meditations  and  studies  in  regard  to  preaching,  though  firmly 
resolved  to  propose  to  you  all  the  natural  resources  which 
give  works  of  art  their  relative  perfection,  has  the  fullest  con- 
viction that  God  alone  understands  art,  that  his  Spirit  alone 
is  eloquent  in  our  discourses,  and  that  in  the  words  of  my 
venerable  predecessor,  to  paint  usefully  the  great  things  of 
the  everlasting  kingdom,  "  we  must  dip  our  pencils  in  the 
azure  of  heaven." 

The  other  sentiment  to  which  I  would  give  utterance  is 
that  of  gratitude.  What  a  demand  has  there  been  upon  me 
for  the  use,  the  exercise  of  this  sentiment,  the  most  pure  and 
useful  of  the  human  soul !  The  object  of  the  most  touching 
attentions  from  the  bosom  of  the  honorable  and  illustrious 
city  in  which  I  have  passed  in  peace  the  half  of  my  life,  I 
have  seen,  if  I  may  venture  to  speak  thus,  my  dear  country 
extending  to  me  her  arms ;  I  have  seen  my  native  place,  after 
twenty  years,  acknowledging  and  again  demanding  me,  and 
three  corporations  at  once,  than  which  none  amongst  us  are 
either  more  respected  or  more  worthy  of  respect,  concurring 
with  one  another,  in  order  to  bind  me  anew  to  my  country, 
by  the  most  honorable  ties.  To  the  council  of  the  State,  I 
venture  to  offer  through  you,  M.  Councillor,  as  their  organ, 
the  homage  of  my  respectful  gratitude,  for  the  confidence  in 
me  which  they  have  sho\\ai,  and  for  all  the  valuable  adjuncts 
with  which  they  have  been  pleased  to  surround  my  function. 
Be  pleased  then,  as  President  of  the  Council  of  Public  In- 
struction, to  assure  that  authority,  the  source  of  so  much 


608  INSTALLATION  DISCOURSE. 

good  and  so  many  useful  projects  in  the  midst  of  us,  of  my 
profound  desire  that  the  appointment  in  which  it  has  cordial- 
ly concurred,  may,  by  the  divine  blessing,  be  one  day  reckon- 
ed with  the  good  which  it  has  done.  And  will  you,  sir,  the 
Rector,  and  you  gentlemen,  members  of  the  Academy,  to 
whom  I  owe  the  same  sentiment,  since  you  gave  the  first  im- 
pulse to  that  series  of  actions  which  have  resulted  in  my  as 
sociation  with  you  in  labor,  receive  with  a  generosity  worthy 
of  you,  treat  with  indulgence,  a  novice,  who  perhaps  will  long 
remain  one  ;  bear  with  his  inexperience,  and  pardon  him  if  his 
health,  long  since  impaired,  does  not  permit  him  to  concur 
with  as  much  energy  as  may  be  desirable,  in  the  various  la- 
bors in  which  he  is  to  partake  with  you.  If  good-will  goes 
for  aught,  if  in  the  view  of  benevolence,  it  takes  the  place  of 
positive  benefit,  the  colleague  you  have  just  receiv-ed  will 
cause  you  no  regret.  May  God,  the  God  of  peace  and  holi- 
ness, of  equity  and  love,  be  always  with  you  and  this  new 
colleague  ;  and  may  He  grant  to  me  that  I  may  not  too  pain- 
fully disappoint  your  just  expectation,  that  of  the  honorable 
government,  that  of  the  country.     I  have  done. 


NOTE   REFERRED  TO  ON  PAGE  501. 

Is  it  true  that  one  of  the  conditions  of  zeal  is  a  certain  narrow- 
ness of  views,  a  certain  poverty  of  ideas  ?  Some  persons  appear  so 
to  think,  and  some  facts  seem  to  support  their  opinion.  Many  men 
who  are  zealous  for  religion  show  little  jealousy  in  doing  justice  to 
all  the  faculties  of  the  soul,  to  all  its  tendencies,  to  the  whole  of  hu- 
man nature.  These  verses,  designed  for  a  wholly  different  purpose, 
may  be  said  to  apply  to  them  : 

De  la  limite  rigou  reuse, 

Ou  le  cmur  semble  reserr6, 

II  recoit  cette  force  heurexise 

Qui  I'eleve  au  plus  haut  degr6. 

Telle,  dans  des  canaux  press6e, 

Avec  plus  de  force  61anc6e,  ♦ 

L'onde  s'eleve  dans  les  airs.* 

A  perplexing  inconsistency,  if  it  be  real ;  for  zeal  is  not  an  ir- 
regularity, an  error ;  zeal  also  is  a  truth  ;  how  can  it  be  inconsistent 
with  other  truths  ? — unless,  indeed,  it  be  connected  with  some  error, 
for  all  error  is  inconsistent  not  only  with  some  one  particular  truth 
but  with  all  truths  taken  collectively.  But  the  inconsistency  does 
not  exist.  It  cannot  be  proved  from  the  nature  of  things,  that  one 
truth  can  be  loved  and  promoted  only  at  the  expense  of  contemning 
and  opposing  other  truths ;  and,  then,  as  there  have  been  men  of  in- 
telligent and  comprehensive  views,  who  were  zealous  in  a  given  di- 

*  "  From  the  narrow  limits  ■within  which  the  heart  seems  to  be  confined,  it  re- 
ceives a  happy  force,  which  increases  its  elevation  ;  as  the  wave,  by  being  com- 
pressed in  its  channel,  shoots  forward  with  more  power,  and  raises  itself  on  high." 
-Tr. 


510  NOTE. 

P 
rection,  the  scandal  falls  of  itself.     All  that  we  may  admit  (and 

this  doubtless  should  be  admitted)  is  that,  in  our  disordered  nature, 
force  will  always  be  less  uncommon  than  equilibrium  in  force,  that 
this  equilibrium  is  more  common  when  there  is  a  mediocrity  or  indif- 
ference of  talent,  as  it  is  naturally,  in  the  scales  of  a  balance  in  which 
there  is  nothing  ;  that  a  strong  conviction  easily  disturbs  it ;  man, 
with  all  his  will  for  what  is  true  when  he  has  discovered  it,  for  what 
is  good  when  he  has  recognized  it,  has  not  too  much,  nor  even 
enough  of  it.  Force  in  this  case  throws  itself  with  impetuosity  on 
the  important  side,  or  that  which  has  been  hitherto  neglected,  or  is 
in  present  danger.  Be  not  too  severe  towards  the  man  of  narrow 
mind ;  he  is  narrow  only  through  severity  toward  himself.  Respect 
his  motives  while  you  censure  their  effects.  Prefer  anything  to  in- 
difference, and  impute  to  the  narrow,  but  conscientious  man,  all  the 
affections  which,  though  he  has  them  not,  he  yet  would  have  them 
if  his  conscience  would  permit,  and  will  have  them  as  soon  as  he 
shall  know  them  to  be  right  and  necessary.  His  time  has  not  yet 
come.  Truth,  most  certainly  is  one,  and  to  be  in  favor  of  one  truth 
is,  at  the  same  time,  to  be  in  favor  of  every  one.  In  principle,  in 
an  abstract  sense,  this  is  so,  and  no  man  unquestionably  can  be  the 
friend  of  one  truth  and  intentionally  the  enemy  of  any  other. 

But  still  it  is  necessary  that  this  agreement,  this  unity  of  truths, 
be  recognized ;  still  must  it  be  perceived  how  distant  and  apparent- 
ly isolated  facts  are  united  by  invisible  links ;  how,  especially,  in- 
stitutions, works,  over  which  vice  has  spread  itself,  are  yet  of  divine 
origin,  of  divine  right,  as  well  as  that  supreme  truth  in  the  light  of 
which  they  will  be  one  day  acknowledged.  Let  us  consider  that 
the  actual  world  puts  the  zealous  christian  into  some  embarrass- 
ment, and  that  to  insist  that  he  shall  at  the  first  glance  admit  it 
into  the  frame-work  of  his  faith,  is  most  frequently  to  insist  on  what 
is  impossible.  If  you  say  to  him  that  if  his  religion  be  true,  it 
should  take  a  whole  world  into  its  enclosure,  that  the  christian 


NOTE.  511 

ouglit,  if  need  be,  to  include  the  artist,  the  mechanic,  the  politician, 
the  philosopher,  that  all  religion  which  is  not  coextensive  with  hu- 
man nature,  is  untrue ;  and  that  we  must  either  write  this  nature 
false,  or  embrace  it  fully  with  aU  its  consequences ;  perhaps  he  will 
not  contradict  this,  but  he  will  be  perplexed  in  making  application 
of  it ;  perhaps,  also,  he  will  exclude  from  human  life  what  he  knows 
he  cannot  admit  into  his  system,  and  thus  the  truth  will  be,  in  ap- 
pearance, a  new  bed  of  Procrustes.  The  truth,  however,  and  the 
truth  alone,  so  far  from  excluding  anything,  receives  everything. 
The  gospel  alone  is  as  large  as  life,  since  it  is  infinitely  large,  since, 
in  every  sense,  "God  is  greater  than  our  heart;"  religion  is  to  life 
what  the  horizon  of  reason  is  to  the  horizon  of  sense  ;  and  it  is  only 
in  its  comprehensive  bosom  that  all  true  things  recognize  and  embrace 
each  other.  In  the  world  of  the  gospel,  but  in  no  other,  is  there  a 
place  for  everything.  A  perfect  world,  in  which  there  is  no  jar,  no 
discord,  is  possible  only  by  means  of  the  gospel ;  and  if  the  appear- 
ance be  otherwise,  it  is  because  the  greater  part  of  evangelical  men, 
(I  say  not  the  gospel,)  cannot  at  once  conceive  of  the  perfect  world 
which  the  gospel  embraces,  and  have  in  their  view  beforehand,  as 
the  model  of  the  social  world,  only  that  formless  mass  which  actual 
reality  presents  to  them,  and  which  calls  itself  the  nature  of  things. 
These  men,  in  the  embarrassment  which  results  to  them  from  this 
two-fold  circumstance,  attempt  to  retain  the  gospel  apart  from  its 
developments  and  applications,  apart  from  human  life,  apart  from 
the  world ;  to  call  that  mutilated  remnant  the  world  and  human  life 
which  has  no  longer  signification  or  use ;  to  falsify  thus  (though 
without  intending  it)  the  gospel  itself  and  to  impress  upon  it,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  multitude,  a  stamp  of  narrowness  and  exclusiveness 
which  does  not  belong  to  it.  But  this  error,  in  sincere  and  reflect- 
ing minds,  is  not  lasting ;  and  even  without  the  aid  of  reflection, 
the  gospel  is  so  human  that  of  itself  it  descends  towards  life,  and 
makes  them  to  descend  with  it ;  it  quietly  proves  itself  to  be  in  har- 


512  NOTE. 

mony  with  nature;  it  silently  verifies  its  relationship  to  man,  while 
it  purifies,  corrects,  organizes  everything,  it  connects  itself  with 
everything ;  it  re-constructs  within  its  own  pale  a  world  in  which 
there  is  scope  for  all  our  faculties,  food  for  all  our  forces,  a  horizon 
for  all  our  thoughts,  and  in  an  excellent  sense,  this  world  of  the  gos- 
pel or  of  grace,  is  the  world  of  man  and  of  nature.  Do  you  ask, 
where  is  this  world?  Where  shall  we  seek  it?  In  no  constitution 
with  which  I  am  acquainted,  in  the  morals  of  no  people  taken  in  the 
mass,  but  in  many  an  individual,  in  many  a  family  in  whom  it  is  re* 
alized  with  surprising  perfection  and  the  sweetest  charms. 


INDEX 


A. 

Accumulation  of  arguments,  202  ;  in  style,  force  of,  453  ;  example  of 
the  latter  from  Massillon,  454. 

Affections,  the  elevated  to  be  excited  rather  than  others,  222. 

Allegory  distinguished  from  a  spiritual  sense,  120,  121 ;  use  of  in 
preaching  not  improper,  444. 

Analogy,  germ  of  every  where,  120;  argument  by,  defined,  196;  value 
of  argument  by,  197. 

Analysis  explained,  52 :  ties  as  well  as  sifts,  148. 

Antithesis,  power  of,  440 

Apostrophe,  example  of  from  Massillon,  460. 

Argumentation,  affirmative  and  negative,  different  objects  of,  177  ; 
analytical  and  synthetic,  180;  ad  hominem,  183,184;  direct 
and  indirect,  186;  apagagic,  188;  ex-adverso,  189;  k  fortiori  (a 
form  used  in  the  gospel  more  frequently  than  any  other),  193, 
195  ;  by  analogy  defined,  196;  value  of  this  last  form,  197,  198  ; 
from  supposition,  199. 

Arguments,  sometimes  reasons,  and  sometimes  motives,  170 ;  the  effect 
of,  mixed  in  religious  discourse,  288  ;  the  strength  of  relative, -^ 
293. 

Art,  a  second  Nature,  35  ;  is  the  serious  search  for  means  suited  to  an 
end,  33  ;  consequences  of  excluding  it  from  preaching,  34  ;  is  in- 
telligent instinct,  35  ;  etymology  of,  55  ;  not  to  be  cultivat- 
ed for  its  own  sake,  350 ;  not  to  be  confounded  with  artifice, 
83,  351 ;  not  the  mere  imitation  of  Nature,  392. 

Athenians,  permitted  no  appeals  to  the  feelings  in  addresses  to  the 
judges  of  the  Areopagus,  217  ;  made  amends  for  this  restriction 
by  excess  in  such  appears  out  of  the  Areopagus,  ibid. 

Authority,  in  discourse  defined,  227  ;  acceptable  in  all  public  dis- 

22* 


514  INDEX. 

course,  22 Y,  228  ;  especially  acceptable  in  a  christian  preacher, 
ibid ;  distinguished  from  magisterial  stateliness,  228  ;  defective 
in  the  preaching  of  these  times,  230 ;  Catholics,  in  respect  to  it, 
have  the  advantage,  230 ;  whence  the  diminution  of  it  among 
Protestants,  230,  231 ;  not  lessened  by  the  condescensions  of 
charity,  232,  233  ;  true,  is  simple  and  dignified,  233  ;  is  consist- 
ent with  the  deepest  humility  and  holy  trembling,  234 ;  tests 
of,  236. 
Awakening,  characteristic  doctrines  of  the  recent,  489. 

B. 

Beauties  of  style  often  consist  of  improprieties  of  language,  371. 
Beautiful  in  preaching  not  to  be  distinguished  from  the  good,  214. 
Bible,  the  true  diapason  of  the  preacher,  418. 
Biblical  preaching  tends  to  logical  consistency  and  power,  48'7. 
Busch,  Br.,  his  sermon  on  Luke,  x.,  23,  27,  analysis  oi^  142. 

c. 

Chalmeri  astronomical  sermons,  allusion  to,  7, 

Christianity,  the  triumph  of,  the  reintegration  of  nature,  34 ;  more 
ancient  than  Judaism,  122  ;  full  of  antitheses,  440. 

Choice  of  thoughts  is  invention,  264. 

Choicest  forms  of  expression  adherent  to  things,  428. 

Clarke,  sermons  on  the  existence  of  God  alluded  to,  77. 

Claude's  rule  as  to  texts  rejected,  189. 

Comedy,  does  not  correct  morals,  214. 

Common-place,  the  true  ground  of  Eloquence,  176. 

Comparison,  not  specially  proper  to  the  pulpit,  445 
^Conscience,  cases  of,  how  to  be  treated  in  the  pulpit,  84. 

Controversy  in  the  pulpit,  78. 

Conviction,  simple,  sets  nothing  in  motion,  264. 

Context,  of  action  as  well  as  words,  133;  general,  ibid  ;  particular, 
ibid;  consequences  of  disregarding,  133,  134. 

Continuity  of  movement,  what  is  necessary  to  it,  290. 

Contrast   between  Bossuet  and  Massillon,  as  to  rapidity  of  style, 
386,  389. 

Correction  in  style  an  excellent  figure  when  not  a  figure,  465 ;  ex- 
ample of,  from  Bossuet,  455. 

Correctness  of  style  regards  the  conventionalities  of  language,  377. 


INDEX.  515 

D. 

Decomposition,  (of  the  sermon,)  cliemical  and  physical,  155. 

Definition,  defined,  161;  distinguished  from  judgment,  161,  163;  for- 
mal, rejected  by  Cicero,  164 ;  often  the  beginning  of  proof,  164. ; 
direct  and  indirect,  164;  Marmontel  on  the  use  of,  164;  rules  as 
to  the  use  of,  165. 

Detached  passages,  danger  to  discourse  from  writing  them,  without 
having  in  view  the  discourse  as  a  whole,  285,  and  note. 

Difference  between  the  subject  and  the  matter  of  discourse,  153. 

Direct  form  of  address  recommended,  451. 

Disposition,  the  physical  mechanism  of  discourse,  262 ;  often  forms 
the  whole  difference  between  a  common  orator  and  an  eloquent 
man,  264 ;  its  importance  to  instruction,  265 ;  to  persuasion, 
266 ;  its  imj)ortance  illustrated  by  Quintilian,  26*7  ;  and  by  Buf- 
fon,  2*70;  by  Maury,  271 ;  perfects  the  work  of  invention,  271 ; 
three  effects  of,  268 ;  essential  to  writing  well,  269  ;  complete 
want  of,  almost  impossible  even  to  the  most  negligent  mind,  265 ; 
least  aptitude  for  it,  in  those  who  have  at  the  same  time  too 
many  and  too  few  ideas,  341 ;  the  test  of  oratorical  genius,  341. 

Divisions,  Fenelon's  objections  to  them  examined,  291 ;  rules  to  be 
observed  in  respect  to  them,  282  ;  remarks  on  them  by  Robert 
Hall,  315. 

Doctrinal  subjects,  value  of,  75. 

Doctrine,  not  everything  in  it,  but  the  heart  only,  to  be  treated  in 
the  pulpit,  78. 

Doubts,  solutions  of,  and  answers  to  objections,  where  to  be  placed, 
296. 

Dramatisme,  example  of,  from  Bourdaloue,  463 :  dialogue  the  most 
complete  form  of,  (example  from  Saurin,)  464. 

Dwight,  Dr.,  his  sermons  on  the  Sabbath  alluded  to,  77.  • 

E. 

Effects  of  Difference  and  Resemblance,  191,  192. 

Elegance,  defined,  467  ;  has  positive  elements,  468  ;  chaste,  appropri- 
ate to  the  pulpit,  470 ;  beyond  a  certain  point  inconsistent  with 
gravity,  470  ;  apt  to  be  cold,  469 ;  not  beauty,  469  ;  should  ap- 
pear not  only  in  separate  sentences,  but  in  the  texture  of  the 
diction,  469  ;  example  of,  from  Massillon,  469. 

Elements  Evangelical,  in  the  Old  Testament,  126,  128. 


516  INDEX. 


E. 


Elocution,  function  of,  344 ;  the  work  of  thought,  ibid. 

Eloquence,  La  Bruyere's  definition  of  it,  22  ;  Pascal's,  23  ;  rests  on 
sympathy,  ibid ;  preeminently  in  things,  46  ;  distinguished  fioin 
poetry,  423  ;  would  not  be  eloquence  if  it  did  not  at  least  pre- 
tend to  be  in  favor  of  good,  205 ;  the  style  of,  the  active  style, 
425 ;  estimation  of  among  the  Arabs,  357 ;  anger  more  favora- 
ble to  it  than  love  and  peace,  176 ;  the  true  region,  the  natural 
medium  of,  the  thoughts  and  language  of  all,  400. 

Emotion,  distinguished  from  affection,  215  ;  not  improper  to  excite 
it,  ibid;  objection  answered,  216  ;  the  Bible  excites  it,  217  ;  of 
all  kinds,  legitimate  with  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  ibid ;  emo- 
tion but  not  perturbation,  219;  emotion  and  zeal,  220,  221. 

Epoch,  present,  the  great  characteristic  of,  479;  calls  for  facts  and 
recitals  in  preaching,  504. 

Epithet,  defined,  436  ;  abused  by  the  middling  class  of  writers,  ibid  ; 
when  unmeaning,  ibid ;  ought  to  be  striking,  to  present  a  pic- 
ture or  contain  a  judgment,  438 ;  example  of  the  use  of,  ibid; 
combined  and  contrasted  epithets,  439. 

Euphony,  what,  471 ;  to  be  regarded,  472. 

Evil,  no  witness  for  in  the  conscience,  25. 

Examples,  of  the  power  of  an  image,  word,  etc.,  apart  from  rea- 
son, 32. 

Exclamation,  resource  of  frigid  minds,  460. 

Exegesis,  place  of  in  the  pulpit,  156. 

Exercise,  renders  the  mind  fruitful,  52. 

Exorditim,  principle  of,  297  ;  reasons  for,  298  ;  object  of,  ibid  ;  choice 
of  the  idea  is  not  arbitrary,  299 ;  tests  of  excellence  in,  307  ; 
matter  for,  301,  303 ;  when  to  be  composed,  308. 

Experience,  proof  by,  its  object,  172;  recommendations  and  abuses  of, 
ibid ;  facts  of  not  always  best  when  taken  from  our  neighbor- 
hood, 173,  174. 

F. 

Facts  and  ideas  as  related  to  each  other,  159,  161. 
Familiarity  of  style  more  than  popularity,  402. 
Fear,  distinguished  from  terror,  210. 

Form  of  the  Sermon,  improved  though  it  still  retains  too  much  of 
the  old  method,  332;  in  the  l7th   century,  ibid;  according  to 


INDEX.  517 

Fenelon's  theory,  333 ;  example  of  from  Massillon,  on  Consum- 
matum  est,  332 ;  extract  from  Theremin  respecting  it,  335,  and 
from  Herder,  839  ;  improved  form  characterized,  491,  492. 

French  language,  eminent  in  perspicuity,  and  why,  370. 

Force  of  God,  in  the  moral  world  consists  of  our  forces,  493. 

Fruitful,  texts  defined,  137. 

a. 

Gaiety,  in  puljjit  discourse  improper,  410. 

Genius,  must  not  dispense  with  art,  34 ;  shows  itself  in  disposi- 
tion, 341. 

Goodness,  has  two  forms  as  an  axis  two  poles,  206. 

Gradation  in  style,  sometimes  rises  to  the  rank  of  figure,  463 ;  strik- 
ing example  of,  from  Pascal,  ibid. 

H. 

Half-proofs,  multiplied  remain  half-proofs,  202. 

Happiness,  motive  from  to  be  presented  by  the  preacher,  and  why, 

207  ;  rules  to  be  followed  in  presenting  this  motive,  208. 
Harmony,  of  what  comprised,  471. 
Historical  subjects,  advantages  of,  88,  89. 
Hom.ily,  distinguished  from  the  sermon,  148  ;  manner  of,  both  analytic 

and  synthetic,  147  ;  must  have  unity,  148 ;  more  difficult  to  make 

a  good  one  than  a  good  sermon,  150;  recommended  by  the  best 

judges,  150,  151. 
Humanity  of  the  Bible,  418,  420. 

I. 

Idea,  defined,  158 ;  does  not  exist  apart  from  a  proposition,  ibid;  dis- 
tinguished from  form  or  category,  ibid. 

Ideas  of  the  mind,  not  individuals  but  parts  of  an  endless  line,  281 — 
.  note. 

Imagination,  not  necessarily  a  deceiver,  355. 

Images,  to  be  fused  into  the  texture  of  the  style,  436. 

Individuality,  not  hindered  by  knowledge,  57  ;  in  preaching  secured 
by  true  zeal,  486. 

Indirect  style,  power  of,  examj)les  from  La  Bruyere  and  Pascal,  450. 

Insincerity  in  argumentation  among  the  ancients,  203. 

Intellect,  too  much  labor  of  injui'ious,  136. 


518  INDEX. 

Interest,  oratorical  and  didactic  distinguished  from  each  other,  70 
artistic,  ibid ;  -worldly,  objects  of  to  be  excluded  from  the  pulpit, 
73. 

Interrogation,  abuse  of,  459 — note. 

Invention,  a  thing  sui  generis,  not  to  be  explained,  50 ;  means  of,  50,  53 ; 
among  the  ancients  less  the  faculty  of  finding  than  the  art  of 
choosing  among  things  found,  53 ;  Massillon  defective  in,  292. 

Irony,  not  to  be  excluded  from  the  pulpit,  456 ;  examples  of  from 
Saurin  and  from  Demosthenes,  ibid ;  and  from  Boileau,  24*7. 

J. 

Jesus  Christ,  in  his  actions  as  well  as  nature  perfect  man,  498  ;  to  be 

imitated  in  this  by  preachers,  ibid. 
Jews,  spiritual,  virtual  christians,  125. 

K. 

Key  of  the  Bible,  certain  words  rightly  understood,  111. 

L. 

Labor,  the  universal  law,  352. 

Laconic  style  to  be  alternated  with  the  periodic,  475. 

Language,  biblical,  characterized  by  Herder,  114;  poetical,  peculiar- 
ities of,  113  ;  synthetic  and  analytical  difference  between,  112  ; 
Latin  in  a  sense  corrupted  by  Christianity,  115 ;  life  of  a  people 
in  their,  ibid. 

Logic,  sometimes  infuriates,  175  ;  preachers  in  danger  from  the  use 
of,  ibid ;  every  element  of  our  being  has  its  own,  488 ;  has  made 
dupes  as  well  as  style,  352. 

Logical  disposition,  the  basis  of  oratorical,  287. 

M. 

Meditation,  defined,  51 ;  aided  by  analysis,  ibid;  etymology  of  the 
word,  ibid;  process  of,  275. 

Metaphor,  power  of  in  painting,  441,  442. 

Mind,  the  human,  demands  combination  after  the  analysis,  147  ;  often 
prefers  the  reflection  of  light  to  light,  186. 

Models,  how  to  be  studied,  48. 

Morality,  subjects  of  defined,  80 ;  discredited  and  by  what,  ibid ; 
reasons  for  preaching  it,  80,  81. 

Moral  Subjects,  which  are  not  in  the  gospel,  to  be  treated  in  the  pul- 
pit, 83. 


INDEX.  519 

Motive,  is  what  leads  one  to  change  his  moral  place,  204. 

Motives,  all  reducible  to  goodness  and  happiness,  206  ;  bad  ones  dis- 
guised by  those  who  employ  them,  205. 

Movement,  characteristic  of  eloquence,  288 ;  this  movement  continu- 
ous, ibid ;  and  progressive  as  far  as  continuous,  292  ;  oratorical 
compared  to  the  fall  of  heavy  bodies,  292 ;  violation  of,  293  ;  in 
style  what,  44*7 ;  the  royal  beauty  of  style,  448  ;  may  show  itself 
even  in  the  expository  style,  449. 

N. 

Narration  and  description  to  be  fused  into  one  another,  158. 

Narrowness  of  views  in  a  zealous  christian  apology  for,  510. 

Naturalness  in  style  very  rare,  393 ;  varies  with  times  and  places, 
ibid ;  distinguished  from  naivete,  394 ;  and  simplicity,  398 ; 
gives  peculiar  delights,  393  ;  specially  wanting  in  the  pulpit, 
and  why,  395. 

Nature  an  artist,  33  ;  subjects  drawn  from  the  contemplation  of,  re- 
commended, 90 ;  an  immense  parable,  ibid. 

Nobleness  of  style  defined,  40V  ;  regards  choice  of  thoughts  first, 
then  words,  408 ;  Buffon's  idea  of,  ibid. 

Novelty,  the  value  of  in  preaching,  94,  95 ;  in  the  absolute  sense, 
none  in  the  state  of  things  produced  by  a  religious  awaken- 
ing, 481. 

Number,  importance  of,  472  ;  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  introduc- 
tion of  unusual  phrases  which  make  a  sort  of  verse,  4*74 ;  difi"er- 
ence  as  to,  between  poetry  and  prose,  ibid ;  first  object  of,  not  to 
amuse  the  eai%  but  to  spare  the  hearer  the  pains  of  seeing  the 
orator  out  of  breath:  Gaichies  and  Cicero  cited  as  to  the  object 
and  benefit  of,  473  ;  aids  in  understanding  and  retaining  the 
discourse,  473;  not  peculiar  to  the  periodic  style,  474;  to  be 
sacrificed  to  thought,  473. 

Numerous  style  the,  has  place  in  the  involutions  of  the  oratorical 
period,  474 ;  periodic  style  to  be  avoided,  if  the  style  called  nu- 
merous would  not  suit  our  discourse,  ibid. 

0. 

Objections  to  Homiletics  answered,  39,  44. 

Obscure  texts  to  be  avoided,  135. 

Oblique  rays  in  morality  often  the  warmest,  131,  132. 

Occasional  sermons,  the  character  of,  when  they  are  valuable,  86,  86. 


520  INDEX. 

Oratorical  discourse  defined,  26  ;  a  combat,  ibid ;  distinguished  from 
didactic  discourse  and  from  poetry,  27. 

Oratory,  difference  between  profane  and  sacred  as  to  occasion  and 
the  result  aimed  at,  30 ;  as  to  authority,  235,  236 ;  as  to  sub- 
ject, 64  ;  as  to  invention,  53. 

Order,  a  discourse  imagined  in  which  the  chief  laws  of  are  violated, 
266 ;  important  because  beautiful,  267 ;  demanded  by  the  hu- 
man mind,  388,  389  ;  principle  of  may  it  not  be  as  much  in  pas- 
sion as  in  reason?  271 ;  difficulty  from  placing  this  principle  in 
logic,  272  ;  rules  of  applied  to  style,  390. 

Old  Testament,  texts  to  be  taken  from  it  notwithstanding  the  superi- 
ority of  the  New  Testament,  129  ;  traits  in  it  not  purely  evan- 
gelical, 128  ;  traits  in  it  purely  spiritual,  126. 


Painting  in  pulpit  discourse,  433. 

Panoply  of  the  orator,  202. 

Particularity  in  subjects  of  morality  when  carried  too  far,  82. 

Particular  sins  how  to  be  treated,  83. 

Partition,  arguments  for  and  against  it,  result,  312  ;  citation  respect- 
ing it  from  Robert  Hall,  in  note,  312,  313. 

Pascal  an  orator  par  excellence,  and  why,  25. 

Peroration,  a  discourse  added  to  the  end  of  a  discourse,  320  ;  in  what 
respects  different  from  the  exordium,  320 ;  in  some  cases  not  dis- 
tinct from  the  discourse,  321 ;  reasons  for,  323 ;  dififerent  forms 
of,  323,  326  ;  more  difficult  than  the  exordium,  326  ;  moderation 
of  the  masters  in  the,  329. 

Personality  in  preaching,  242,  243. 

Perspicuity,  the  first  excellence  in  style,  368 ;  test  of,  369  ;  requires 
sincerity  and  distinct  conception  of  ideas,  371,  372;  the  writer 
in  order  to  secure  it  should  put  himself  in  the  place  of  his  read- 
ers, 373. 

Periodic  style  beautifully  characterized,  474. 

Philosophy  an  aid  to  invention,  53  ;  spirit  of,  commended,  93  ;  of  the 
Gospel  how  best  exhibited,  49 ;  the  age  requires  the  philosophy 
of  the  Gospel  to  be  set  in  bold  relief,  496. 

Plan,  should  it  be  announced  ?  309. 

Plans,  conceptions  of  distinguish  good  from  better  orators,  276 , 
logical,  which  do  violence  to  the  essential  nature  of  things,  283 ; 
of  parts  of  the  discourse,  283  ;  the  mind's  ordinary  process  in  re- 


INDEX.  521 

speet  to  them,  283  ;  some  that  raise  the  entire  mass  of  the  sub- 
ject, others  which  raise  only  one  layer  of  it,  276. 

Popularity  of  style  defined,  399:  general  characteristic  of  Grecian 
and  Roman  literature,  400 ;  specially  required  in  the  pulpit,  401. 

Poverty  of  a  discourse,  which  consists  of  general  ideas,  286. 

Preacher,  should  not  alternate  his  addresses  to  believei's  and  non-be- 
lievers, 28  ;  should  not  preach  to  the  nerves  of  his  hearers,  31 ; 
should  not  be  agitated  with  passion,  2*73  ;  is,  by  turns,  a  lawyer 
and  a  magistrate,  31 ;  distinguished  from  the  religious  writer, 
87  ;  his  business  is  a  business,  503  ;  should  keep  before  him  hu- 
manity and  the  age,  495  ;  his  advantage  from  the  prevalence  of 
a  sounder  knowledge  of  the  Gospel,  490 ;  not  to  regard  his  hear- 
ers as  unprincipled  adversaries,  181. 

Preaching,  difference  between  Catholics  and  Protestants  in  respect 
to,  21 ;  not  a  debate  and  yet  it  is  a  debate,  32  ;  prominence  of 
instruction  in,  30. 

Precision,  danger  from  too  much,  116  ;  of  style,  distinguished  from 
propriety,  382 ;  and  from  conciseness,  382. 

Pretcrniission  in  style,  happily  exemplified  by  Cicero,  456. 

Principles  of  division,  280. 

Propension,  presupposed  in  persuasion,  203,  204. 

jProo/ defined,  169,  170;  a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  116. 

Proposition,  sometimes  announced  last  of  all,  274,  275. 

Propriety,  of  style,  the  peculiarity  of  great  writers,  380. 

Prosopopoeia,  example  of,  from  Bossuet,  461 ;  and  from  Massillon,  462. 

Psychology,  importance  of,  to  the  preacher,  91. 

Psychological  subjects,  how  to  be  treated  in  the  pulpit,  92. 

Pulpit,  degraded  by  discourse  on  subjects  of  worldly  interest,  (Dr. 
Ammon  cited,)  73. 

Q. 

Quesnel,  spiritualizes  the  scripture,  118;  his  exposition  of  1  Corin- 
thians, XV.,  27,  28,  135. 

R 

Rapidity  of  style,  defined,  386. 

Pavaison,  on  movement,  292,  note. 

Reasoning,  pure,  has  to  do  with  ideas  not  facts,  174;  a  sort  of  Geome- 

tj-y  of  intellectual  space,  174. 
Reductio  ad  absurdum,  all  reasoning  may  be  reduced  to,  182  ;  when 


522  INDEX. 

does  it  become  a  particular  form  of  argumentation  ?  ibid  ;  com 
pels  error  to  refute  itself,  ibid ;  short  method  of,  ibid ;  Persian 
letters,  an  example  of,  183 ;  may  be  in  action  as  well  as  in  words, 
183;  scarcely  admissible  in  the  pulpit,  183. 

Refutation,  needful  notwithstanding  proo^  1*78. 

Relation  of  the  good  to  the  beautiful,  the  source  of  great  errors,  214. 

Religion,  not  opposed  to  art,  35 ;  itself  a  work  of  art,  44 ;  natural, 
strictly  speaking  none,  80;  natural,  not  to  be  the  subject  of  dis- 
tinct sermons,  'JO. 

Repetition,  one  of  the  boldest  of  figures,  452. 

Reprehension,  its  conditions,  242 ;  its  rules,  ibid :  example  o^  from 
Bridaine,  244. 

Reserved  feeling,  in  eloquence  manly  and  dignified,  219. 

Reticence,  to  be  seldom  used  in  the  pulpit,  452. 

Ridicule,  not  admissible  into  the  pulpit,  214. 

s. 

Saurin's  sermon  on  the  divinity  of  Christ  compared  with  Massillon's, 
18^7. 

Schematisme,  or  symmetrical  plans  disapproved,  290. 

Self-love  does  not  determine  us  to  duty  or  truth,  yet  to  be  appealed 
to,  213. 

Sermon,  defined,  28. 

Simplicity,  etymology  of,  398. 

Spiritualizing,  danger  from,  118. 

Style,  strength  and  beauty  of,  421 ;  not  diction,  346,  367  ;  of  St.  Paul, 
357  ;  attention  not  a  waste  of  time,  362 ;  nor  does  it  hinder  us 
from  attending  to  substance,  358  ;  a  fine,  345  ;  merits  of  will  be 
acknowledged  after  a  time  by  all,  358  ;  the  qualities  of  an  elo- 
quent, may  be  reduced  to  color  and  movement,  421. 

Subdivisions,  two  advantages  of,  287. 

Synonyms,  no  perfect  ones,  378. 

Synthesis,  the  purpose,  summit,  essence  of  all  oratorical  discourse, 
262. 

Synthetic  discourse,  rests  on  a  thesis,  97. 

Synthetic  form  of  truth,  as  given  to  us  by  God,  76. 

T. 

Teaching,  its  place  in  pulpit  eloquence,  29,  80,  31. 

Terror  and  tenderness  combined,  example  of  from  Bossuet,  211. 


INDEX.  523 

Test  of  subject-matter  appropriate  for  the  pulpit,  and  what  subjects 
are  excluded  by  it,  72,  74. 

Texts,  what  would  be  thought  as  to  the  use  of  by  a  stranger  to  the 
forms  of  preaching,  99  ;  effect  of  abolishing  the  use  of,  102 ; 
different  degrees  of  spirituality  of,  121 ;  extension  of,  131 ;  have 
not  two  senses,  135  ;  two  to  one  sermon,  146  ;  occasions  of  pain- 
ful distortion,  96;  unsuitable  ones,  139. 

Theology,  in  what  view  suited  to  the  pulpit,  75  ;  to  be  transformed 
into  religion,  76. 

TTiesis,  97  ;  why  not  to  be  abandoned,  98. 

Thinking  well  and  writing  badly,  347. 

Timidity  at  the  beginning  of  a  discourse,  305. 

Transitions,  a  kind  of  punctuation  on  a  large  scale,  317  ;  their  ad- 
vantages, 318 ;  difficulty  of,  ibid ;  good,  ibid. 

Translations,  the  preacher  not  to  confine  himself  to  them,  108. 

Truth,  in  part,  lies  in  the  sense  of  truth,  26 ;  every,  a  part  of  truth, 
71. 

U. 

Unction,  not  pathos,  224 ;  not  always  proportioned  to  piety,  225 ; 
wit,  logic,  too  much  analysis,  incompatible  with,  226. 

Unity,  a  demand  of  the  human  mind,  54 ;  not  identity,  55  ;  essential 
in  works  of  art,  ibid ;  especially  necessary  in  pulpit  discourse, 
56 ;  oratorical  distinguished  from  historic  and  didactic,  59  ;  in 
a  sermon  requires  that  the  sermon  be  reducible  to  a  practical 
proposition,  59 ;  forms  under  which  it  may  exist,  60 ;  rigidly 
observed  by  French  preachers  of  the  Catholic  Communion,  66 ; 
wanting  in  a  sermon  cited  from  Reinhard,  67 ;  not  necessarily 
wanting  where  the  subject  has  great  breadth,  68;  two  tests 
of,  ibid. 

Useful,  the,  in  eloquence  excludes  useless  beauties,  426 ;  is  in  elo- 
quence as  in  nature,  426 ;  illustrated  in  a  citation  from  Cicero, 
427. 

Y. 

Variety  arises  from  expressing  things  just  as  they  are,  466  ;  whence 
the  want  of,  ibid ;  not  secured  by  mere  analysis,  ibid ;  the 
study  of  language  also  required,  ibid. 

Vision,  or  oratorical  hypothesis  one  of  the  boldest  of  figures,  458  ; 
an  example  of,  from  Massillon,  458. 


524  INDEX. 

w. 

Will,  determined  by  affection,  203,  204;  freedom  of,  not  inconsistent 

with  being  attracted,  205. 
Wit,  never  inelegant,  468  ;  distinguished  from  buffoonery,  468,  note. 
Word,  the,  idea  of,  19 ;  character  given  to  christian  worship,  by  its 

predominance  in  it,  21. 
Words,  the  same,  have  different  meaning  in  synthetic  and  analytic 

languages,  112 ;  used  in  inventing  and  arranging,  344 ;  not  to  be 

separated  from  sentiments,  355  ;  single  ones  cannot  be  spared  by 

a  poor  orator,  429. 
Writing,  the  idea  of,  less  simple  than  it  may  seem  to  be  at  first,  343 , 

what  it  is,  343. 
Writers,  great,  require  but  little  space  for  a  complete  picture,  435. 
Writers,  the  sacred,  not  grammatical,  140,  note. 

z. 

Zeal,  not  necessarily  connected  with  narrowness  of  views  or  poverty 
of  ideas,  609 ;  true,  favors  individuality,  483  ;  must  follow  rules, 
220  ;  Wesley  and  "Whitefield,  examples  of,  221. 


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"  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  Lhis  Cyclopaedia  surpasses  every  Biblical 
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from  the  Latin,  jv^ith  additions  and  corrections.  By  Thomas  C. 
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agriculture,  eating  and  drinking,  dress,  hospitality,  social  intercourse ;  their  civil 
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YINET — Homiletics,  or  the  Theory  of  Preaching.     By 

A.  Vinet,  D.D.,  Translated  and  Edited  by  Thomas  H.  Skinner, 
D.D.,  Professor  of  Sacred  Rhetoric,  and  Pastoral  Theology,  in  the 
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Theology ;  it  is  simple  in  arrangement,  rich  in  details,  and  brilliant  in  execution. 
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